Dzs is the eighth letter, and only trigraph, of the Hungarian alphabet. It is pronounced [dʒeː] as a letter, and represents the voiced postalveolar affricates [dʒ] and [dːʒ].
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Length
In several words, it is pronounced long, e.g.
- menedzser, bridzs, bridzsel, maharadzsa, lodzsa, rádzsa, hodzsa, dodzsem, tádzsik, Tádzsikisztán, Kudzsiri-havasok
in other ones, short, e.g.
- tinédzser, fridzsider, büdzsé, Fudzsi
It is short without exception:
- next to another consonant: lándzsa, findzsa, nindzsa, bendzsó, bandzsa, halandzsa, halandzsázik, mandzsetta, Kilimandzsáró, Azerbajdzsán, Mandzsúria
- and at the beginning of the word: dzsóker, dzsungel, dzsem, dzsip, dzsida, dzsihád, dzsigg, dzsigoló, dzseki, dzsentri, dzsámi, dzsembori, dzsessz, dzsinn, dzsogging, dzsömper, dzsörzé, dzsunka, dzsuva, dzsúsz, dzsumbuj, dzsúdó, dzsúdzsicu (both are short), Dzsenifer, Dzsesszika, Dzsibuti, Dzsószer, Dzsingisz, Dzsungária, Dzsaváharlál, Dzsaipur
It is not usually doubled even when it is pronounced long, except when a word with this sound has an assimilated suffix: bridzs + dzsel: briddzsel (with the bridge game).
Usage
Usage of this letter is similar to dž in Slovak or Czech. In Hungarian, even though these three characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact. As one can see from the examples above and below, it is almost exclusively used in foreign loanwords, to represent the voiced postalveolar affricate (j/soft g in English).
Examples
The following are Hungarian loanwords (mostly taken from English) using the trigraph dzs:
- nindzsa = ninja
- dzsem = jam
- dzsip = jeep
- bendzsó = banjo
- dzsungel = jungle
- dzsessz = jazz
- lándzsa = spear
See also
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