Talk:Zeta

Untitled

Why is zeta popular in furry fandom? --SPUI (T - C) 14:26, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh good god, this is from 2006.

He had no idea what was coming. Myth (talk) 03:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Zeta (letter) → Zeta — Since the Greek letter is prominent enough that the term "zeta" should go there instead of a disambiguation page. —Yath 08:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support Other uses are derived or obscure. —Michael Z. 2007-08-16 19:47 Z
• Support - I have to agree. If a person searches Zeta they are probably looking for the letter and not some fraternity that has "Zeta" as one of the letters. --Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor (tαlk) 22:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support - as its a primary usage Reginmund 06:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Scanning the disambig page, I can't find any rivals for primary usage. They're all derivative. Andrewa 11:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I stand corrected below, the name of the Zeta River derives from an early root meaning "harvest" or "grain" according to the article, and the Principality of Zeta is named after the river. But I still think the primary meaning in English is the Greek letter, so no change of vote. Andrewa 14:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
• Weak support The Montenegrin river is unlikely to be derivative, but is it real competition? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from Zeta (letter) to Zeta as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 11:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation in Ancient Greek

I would like to point out that Ionic (and Doric) σσ (which is regular in the Koine, as well) corresponds to Attic (and Boeotian) ττ, which seems to go back to *[ts] via an intermediate *[θθ] (this sound change has a neat parallel in the Finnish dialects). Interestingly, *[st] in some Greek dialects seems to have merged with *[θθ] and is spelled σσ or ττ respectively (which can be paralleled with developments in Celtic where *[st] becomes [θθ] or [ss], except in Celtiberian). It is tempting to think that the voiced equivalents of *[ts] and *[st] developped in a parallel fashion: First, *[dz] became *[ðð], and *[zd] merged with this sound in various dialects. Then, it became *[zz] in Ionic (but it does not seem to have become [dd] in Attic - on the other hand, perhaps Attic ττ was really a spelling for [θθ] - or even [ts], as suggested in Ancient Greek phonology - anyway, and ζ was likewise a spelling for [ðð] - or even [dz] - in Attic). Then we would have [zz] in the Koine just as we have [ss], and this is (besides the retention of original *[st]) in fact what we find. (Modern Standard Greek, predictably, simplifies the geminates.) This kind of reasoning (paralleling the voiced sounds with the voiceless ones) is not new if one looks at the arguments in favour of [zd] and against. Therefore I think it would be worthwhile to examine if the assumption that *[zd] and *[dz] developped in a manner (largely) parallel to *[st] and *[ts] explains all the facts. Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. Is it citable? (cf. WP:NOR and WP:RS) --macrakis (talk) 03:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't think so, I'm afraid. I just wanted to throw it out somewhere. That said, I've always been reluctant to accept the [zd] reading for its eccentricity, but the argument with Bulgarian is a very good one I have to admit now. In fact, even Proto-Slavic */dʲ/ has turned into /ʒd/ in Bulgarian, that would be an even more accurate parallel. (It's also curious that the best parallel is found in a geographically neighbouring language.) Although I have to say it still mystifies me how that works phonetically. But I'm now more ready (than I used to be) to consider the [zd] solution, as well. --84.151.219.189 (talk) 05:32, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Meh, that was me. I got logged out in the meanwhile. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to ad my two cents. The entire debate seems to reflect the English problems of ascian (ask) / axian (aks) and tascian (task, "to require") / taxian (taks, "to require").

It is generally accepted by linguists that the easier to pronounce variant, while more common in the language as a whole, comes later. The harder to pronounce variant would have arisen as a newer word -- relative to the language -- for a newly discussed phenomenon. Over time the majority of people have an easier time with a different pronunciation, so it changes. Thus, ask -> aks, task -> tax, and -dz- -> -zd-. 173.30.103.80 (talk) 10:45, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Biased with unverified (and/or) inaccurate (and/or) irrelevant facts

...Are how I would describe this article. It's biased towards the zd pronunciation with weasel-words such as "most handbooks", contains no footnotes (i.e. I have no idea where to search for the facts in the books in the reference list, even if such facts are contained within them) and mentions authors who lived 500 years after the classical time or have been filtered down to us through Alexandrian scholars. Servus Triviae (talk) 22:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Symbolism

A person identifying as a zoophile told me that this symbol, Zeta, has been used by zoophiles as a way of identifying themselves to others. Should this be part of this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.22.201 (talk) 23:37, 13 November 2012 (UTC) EDIT: They're citing this page. http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Zoophilia 86.167.22.201 (talk) 23:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Sonority of affricates/cluster

In the first argument in favor of a historical value of [zd] for zeta, it mentions that [dz] is more likely because [zd] would violate the sonority hierarchy. However, the sonority hierarchy is only really relative to the position of a cluster in the syllable, so while [zd] might be bad (depending on a language's minimal sonority distance) in the onset because the sequence proceeds from greater to lesser sonority (then followed by a vowel, presumably, which would have the greatest sonority), this is expected in the coda.

Based on that, I think mention of sonority hierarchy should be removed from this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.220.13.11 (talk) 19:49, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I see your point, but bear in mind that ζ (just like most other consonants in Greek) basically only ever occurs in the syllable onset. Greek had very strict rules about restricting syllable codas; apart from -s, -n, -r and some few clusters (-ks, -ps) no consonants could appear in absolute word-final position, and I can't think of many others apart from -l- that could appear in word-internal syllable codas either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:01, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

For and against /zd/ and /dz/

Am I the only one feeling that the treatment of this is getting a bit out of control? There is a whole section with several point "for", another "against", and each point has a "contra" for each point "for" or "against"; and, now, 129.101.91.240 has been expanding it a lot with several unrelated but parallel examples from Slavic languages. I call it overkill. LjL (talk) 23:40, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

In other languages

The article claims there is no distinction between Zeta, and the Latin letter Z in Swedish. This is inaccurate, as there is a distinction in both pronunciation and spelling (although letters are rarely spelled out in Swedish). Zeta is spelled Zeta and pronounced with an ⟨e⟩, and Z is spelled Zäta, and pronounced with an ⟨æ⟩. --AwaweWiki (talk) 20:41, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Use as a symbol for zoophiles

As of an unknown date, zoophiles have started using this symbol as a way to identify each other. Potentially related to the use of Theta Delta for therian communities. Multiple other symbols have been used in this way, but this is the only one I've managed to decipher thus far. Not sure if this is important enough to make it onto the page, but it's prevalent enough that I've decided to at least make a comment about it. Myth (talk) 03:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Future Perfect at Sunrise Would this reference be enough? https://zooey.pub/a-history-of-zeta-verein/ The actual use of it in an online handle is pretty widespread, but I was unable to locate a reference other than Urban dictionary. So I'm pretty sure it meets notability standard.

@Future Perfect at Sunrise:The community is also talked about at zoophileSubanark (talk) 13:34, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Both the pages you linked to about that community are self-published, so no reliable sources establishing notability. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Finding a good source amongst all the self-published stuff has been hard as few really want to address it formally, as it is generally taboo. Here are some other sources I found indicating it's notability (which mostly establish the notability of the German advocacy group, which adopted the Zeta name): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20523950 https://suspectslist.neocities.org/ https://eububble.eu/zoophilia-lobbying-in-europe

A formal study on the group is currently ongoing, so I am unsure when that will be completed. Subanark (talk) 15:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

this should be included in the article but we need more reliable sources Daisytheduck (talk) 07:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

None of the material mentioned so far even mention a connection between that group and the Greek letter, so even if there were sources sufficient to establish notability of the group, there would still be no relevance to this article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:27, 17 April 2024 (UTC)