Zeta facts for kids
Zeta (uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. It's like the "Z" in our alphabet! People in Ancient Greece and today in Modern Greek use it to make the "z" sound.
Contents
Discovering Zeta: The Sixth Greek Letter
Zeta is a very old letter with a long history. It is an important part of the Greek alphabet, which has been used for thousands of years. The Greek alphabet helped create many other alphabets we use today.
What Sound Does Zeta Make?
Zeta makes a sound similar to the "z" in words like "zebra" or "zoo." Both ancient Greeks and modern Greeks use it this way. It's an important letter for spelling many words in their language.
Zeta's Special Number
In the old system of Greek numerals, Zeta had a special value. It stood for the number 7. This was a common way for letters to also represent numbers in ancient times.
Zeta's Family Tree
Zeta has some famous "children" in other alphabets! The letter Z in the Roman alphabet (which we use for English) came from Zeta. Also, the letter З in the Cyrillic alphabet (used in languages like Russian) is another one of Zeta's descendants. This shows how alphabets are connected around the world.
Images for kids
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The Greek alphabet on a black figure vessel, showing the Phoenician I shape of the zeta
