Sz is a digraph of the Latin script, used in Hungarian, Kashubian and Polish. It is also used to represent syllables in various romanizations of Mandarin and the Hong Kong government romanization of Cantonese.
Sz is the thirty-second letter of the Hungarian alphabet. It represents and is called "esz" . Thus, names like Liszt are pronounced list.
In Hungarian, even if two characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter (a true digraph), and even acronyms keep the letter intact.
Hungarian usage of s and sz is almost the reverse of the Polish usage. In Hungarian, s represents . For example, the Hungarian capital of Budapest is natively pronounced ().
There is also a zs in Hungarian, which is the last (forty-fourth) letter of the alphabet, following z.
These examples are Hungarian words that use the letter sz, with the English translation following:
In Kashubian, sz represents a voiceless postalveolar fricative , identical to the English "sh". It corresponds to the voiceless retroflex fricative in Polish.
In Polish orthography, sz represents a voiceless retroflex fricative . It usually corresponds to à ¡ or àin other Slavic languages. It is usually approximated by English speakers with the "sh" (IPA: ) sound (and conversely, Polish speakers typically approximate the English digraph sh with the "sz" sound), although the two sounds are not completely identical.
Like other Polish digraphs, it is not considered a single letter for collation purposes.
sz should not be confused with à  (or s followed by i), termed "soft sh", a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative .
(area, territory)<br> (coat, cloak)<br> (Thomas)
Compare à Â:<br> (candle)<br> (to go)<br> (August)
In Chinese, both the Yale romanization of Mandarin and Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II use the digraph sz to represent the syllable ().
In the unpublished romanisation scheme employed by the Hong Kong government, sz is sometimes used in combination with e to represent the syllable , as in Sheung Sze Wan (SÃÂung Së WÃÂan in Yale romanization).
Sz also appears in the sequence tsz, representing the syllables and , as in Tsz Tin Tsuen and Tsz Wan Shan (JàTìhn Chyà «n and Chìh Wàhn SÃÂan respectively in Yale romanization).