Sz is a digraph

Digraph (orthography)

A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...

 of the Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

, used in Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, Kashubian

Kashubian language

Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....

, and formerly in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

.

Polish

In Polish orthography

Polish orthography

Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics...

, sz represents a voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/, similar to English "sh". It usually corresponds to ш

Sha

For other uses, see Sha .Sha is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It commonly represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨sh⟩ in "sheep", or the somewhat similar voiceless retroflex fricative . It is used in every variation of the Cyrillic alphabet, for Slavic and...

 or š

Š

The grapheme Š, š is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiceless postalveolar fricative. In the International Phonetic Alphabet this sound is denoted with , but the lowercase š is used in the Americanist phonetic notation, as well as in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.For use in computer...

 in other Slavic languages.

sz should not be confused with ś

S

S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...

(or s followed by i), termed "soft sh", a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative /ɕ/.

Examples of sz

(area, territory)

(coat, cloak)

Compare ś:

(candle)

(to go)

(August)

Kashubian

In Kashubian

Kashubian language

Kashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....

, sz represents a voiceless postalveolar fricative

Voiceless postalveolar fricative

The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...

 /ʃ/, like English "sh".

Hungarian

Sz is the thirty-second letter of the Hungarian alphabet

Hungarian alphabet

The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Hungarian language.One sometimes speaks of the smaller and greater Hungarian alphabets, depending on whether or not the letters Q, W, X, Y are listed, which can only be found in foreign words and traditional...

. Its name is (using English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 pronunciation with letter romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

) "ess" in the alphabet. It represents /s/. Thus, names like Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

are pronounced /list/ 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 are the reverse of the Polish usage. In Hungarian, s represents /ʃ/ (a sound similar to /ʂ/). Therefore, the Hungarian capital of Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 is natively pronounced (/ˈbudɒpɛʃt/), rhyming with standard English fleshed rather than pest. (More commonly, the last syllable is rhymed with flashed rather than past.)

Examples

These examples are Hungarian words that use the letter sz, with the English translation following.

• szabó = tailor
• szép = beautiful
• szikla = rock
• szőke = blonde
• szülő = parent

German

In German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, it was used to represent /s/ after "long" vowels, later contracting to the ligature ß.