WHY IS the letter Z THE LAST LETTER OF THE ALPHABET?

Answer 1

Because they saved the best for last!

Answer 2

When parlament was figuring out the order of the alphabet, the letter Z had the least political influence.
Or, because everyone was tired, one old MP drifted off to sleep when it was asked what would be a good letter for the end. No sooner said than the old MP he started to snore, "ZZZzzzzZZZzzz" Some one nearby seconded the "Z" and all responded with an "Aye." The motion was carried.
Seriously, if tied to the Greek alphabet "Omega" or O would be our last letter.
Imagine if someone were snoring and we were bound to call that "getting one's Ohs." Not nearly as socially acceptable as getting z's.

Answer 3

The letter Z is the twenty-sixth and the last letter in the Latin Alphabet.

its derivation is from the Greek zeta, The name of the Semitic symbol was zayin, possibly meaning "weapon", and was the seventh letter.

The Greek form of Z was a close copy of the Phoenician symbol I, and the Greek inscriptional form remained in this shape throughout ancient times. The Greeks called it Zeta, a new name made in imitation of Eta (η) and Theta (θ).


It became somewhat obsolete in Greek language, was therefore removed from the alphabet around 300 BC by the Censor, Appius Claudius Caecus, and a new letter, G was put in its place soon thereafter.

In the 1st century BC, it was, like Y, introduced again at the end of the Latin alphabet, in order to represent more precisely the value of the Greek zeta. The letter appeared only in Greek words, and Z is the only letter besides Y that the Romans took directly from the Greek, rather than Etruscan. they stuck it at the end to illustrate that it was from a source they viewed as inferior to thier own politically.

The rest of the alphabet was sorted out in order of importance to early farmers, A being derrived from a picture of an ox head, B a cottage, C is a modern version of 'G', but that comes from the moon, D, a door. E a human figure, F a mace (club), G, H a fence, I a pointing hand, J (roman version of I), K open hand, L a crook (shepherds), M water, N, snake, O eye, P invented for sounds in latin, not in Arabic language, hence modern arabs difficulty pronoucing letter today. Q cord (fabrics), R head, S tooth, T forehead, U medieval development of V, V Roman form of Y. W English 7th c double v, X column, Y ancient greek V, dropped by romans.
the symbols invented last Chi (Χ) Xi, Phi, Psi, and Omega, were added onto the end.


Until recent times, the English alphabets used by children terminated not with Z but with & (ampusand).

Answer 4

Z was the 7th letter of the West Greek alphabet which was borrowed by the Etruscans. But the Z sound did not exist in Etruscan so the letter was never used. When the alphabet was borrowed into Latin from Etruscan, there was also no Z sound in Latin, so they replaced it with a version of C to cover the "g" (as in "goat") sound in Latin (for which there was no letter in the Etruscan alphabet). Later, when Latin began to borrow Greek words, they needed to reintroduce the Z and the only place to put it was at the end of the alphabet along with X and Y.

Answer 5

The letter Z is the last letter of the alphapet because there is no other letter after it. Also because the word alphabet may come from the latin 'alpha' which means first and 'beta' which means last so the letter at the end of the alphaBET is the last.

Answer 6

I guess: because z came to the Latin alphabet later, together with y, x, from Greek language. One can recognize some words of Greek origin in the Latin by presence of specific letters or their combinations, e.g. rh, y. I do not remember well, but z is possibly among them too.

Or maybe it got the last place simply because it was used relatively rarely in Latin?

That is what I thought before looking to Wikipedia:

"Latin Alphabet
From the Cumae alphabet, the Etruscan alphabet was derived and the Latins finally adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters.

Later, probably during the 3rd century BC, the Z was dropped and a new letter G was placed in its position. An attempt by the emperor Claudius to introduce three additional letters was short-lived, but after the conquest of Greece in the first century BC the letters Y and Z were, respectively, adopted and readopted from the Greek alphabet and placed at the end. Now during the classical Latin period, the alphabet contained 23 letters"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet
The Etruscan alphabet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Italic_alphabet

Zeta (letter)
"Zeta (uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Zayin . Letters that arose from Zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З (Ze)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_%28letter%29

After all that I think that z was dropped first possibly because
it was not very necessary, differently than in Phoenician (counted among the Canaanite languages in the Semitic language family)and in ancient Greek.

And it was placed at the end newly because Romans could not avoid absorbtion of many useful things from Greek culture and Greek words together with them and they gave themselves account of that. Maybe these letters appeared at the end bureaucratically, as later things, or maybe because Romans were conquerors and ancient Greeks were the conquered.

Answer 7

You do not know the A to Z of English alphabet.

Answer 8

MMMMMmmmmmmmm!
Now there's a strange question!!

It just is (feebly)

It always was ( shaking head)

Because Z would not sit comfortably anywhere else ,
in the Alphabet . ( excuses)

Where else would you find -----
Zebra, Zeppelin, Zest, Zero, Zeal Zone, Zealot, Zip, Zulu,
etc.
WELL , you only find them, at the very end of the alphabet.
( final proof)

----Z JUST IS "The END"!!!

runs sceaming from the computer ~~~~~~~~~~

>^,,^<

Answer 9

well if a was the last letter u would say.y is a the last letter.
or if the letter y was last u wud say why is the letter y last.its nothing to think about.its just how it is.its like saying y do u ask inapropriate questions

Answer 10

Even the alphabet asks that question. It goes YZ?

Answer 11

Because it's in alphabetical order!