Dz is a digraph of the Latin script, consisting of the consonants D and Z. It may represent, , or , depending on the language.

Usage by language

Dz generally represents in Latin alphabets, including Hungarian, Kashubian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovak, and romanized Macedonian. However, in Dene Suline (Chipewyan) and Cantonese Pinyin it represents, and in Vietnamese it is a pronunciation respelling of the letter D to represent.

Esperanto

Some Esperanto grammars, notably Plena Analiza Gramatiko de Esperanto, consider dz to be a digraph for the voiced affricate, as in edzo "husband". The case for this is "rather weak". Most Esperantists, including Esperantist linguists (Janton, Wells ), reject it.

Hungarian

⟨Dz⟩ is the seventh letter of the Hungarian alphabet. It is called dzé as a letter of the alphabet, where it represents the voiced alveolar affricate phoneme. ⟨Dz⟩ and ⟨dzs⟩ were recognized as individual letters in the 11th edition of Hungarian orthography (1984). Prior to that, they were analyzed as two-letter combinations ⟨d⟩+⟨z⟩ and ⟨d⟩+⟨zs⟩.

Length

Like most Hungarian consonants, the sound can be geminated. However, the letter is only doubled in writing (to ⟨ddz⟩) when an assimilated suffix is added to the stem: eddze, lopóddzon. In several words, it is pronounced long, e.g. bodza, madzag, edz, pedz. In some other ones, short, e.g. dzadzíki, dzéta, Dzerzsinszkij (usually at the begin****ning of words), though it is always short after another consonant (e.g. in brindza). In several verbs ending in -dzik (approximately fifty), there is a free alternation with -zik, e.g. csókolódzik or csókolózik, lopódzik or lopózik. In other verbs, there is no variation: birkózik, mérkőzik (only with ⟨z⟩) but leledzik, nyáladzik (only with ⟨dz⟩, pronounced long). In some other verbs, there is a difference in meaning: levelez(ik) "to correspond", but leveledzik "to produce leaves".

Collation

Usage of this letter is similar to that of Polish and Slovak languages: though ⟨dz⟩ is a digraph composed of ⟨d⟩ and ⟨z⟩, it is considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact.

Polish

Dz generally represents. However, when followed by i it is palatalized to.

Examples of dz

(bell) (kind, type) Compare dz followed by i: (child) (girl, girlfriend)

Slovak

In Slovak, the digraph dz is the ninth letter of the Slovak alphabet. Example words with this phoneme include: The digraph may never be divided by hyphenation: However, when d and z come from different morphemes, they are treated as separate letters, and must be divided by hyphenation: In both cases od- (from) and nad- (above) are a prefix to the stems zem (earth) and zvuk (sound).

Vietnamese

Dz is sometimes used in Vietnamese names as a pronunciation respelling of the letter D. Several common Vietnamese given names start with the letter D, including Dũng, Dụng, and Dương. Whereas D is pronounced as some sort of dental or alveolar stop in most Latin alphabets, an unadorned D in the Vietnamese alphabet represents either (Northern Vietnamese) or (Southern Vietnamese), while the letter Đ represents a voiced alveolar implosive or, according to Thompson (1959), a preglottalized voiced alveolar stop. Z is not included in the Vietnamese alphabet as a letter in its own right. Many Vietnamese cultural figures spell their family names, pen names, or stage names with Dz instead of D, emphasizing the northern pronunciation. Examples include the songwriter Dzoãn Mẫn, the poet Hồ Dzếnh, and the television chef Nguyễn Dzoãn Cẩm Vân. Other examples include Bùi Dzinh and Trương Đình Dzu. Some Overseas Vietnamese residing in English-speaking countries also replace D with Dz in their names. A male named Dũng may spell his name Dzung to avoid being called "dung" in social contexts. Examples of this usage include Vietnamese-Americans Việt Dzũng and Dzung Tran. (Occasionally, D is instead replaced by Y to emphasize the Saigonese pronunciation, as with Yung Krall. )

Unicode

Dz is represented in Unicode as three separate glyphs within the Latin Extended-B block. It is one of the rare characters that has separate glyphs for each of its uppercase, title case, and lowercase forms. The single-character versions are designed for compatibility with Yugoslav encodings supporting Romanization of Macedonian, where this digraph corresponds to the Cyrillic letter Ѕ.

Variants

Additional variants of the Dz digraph are also encoded in Unicode.