Hungarian dzs

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Hungarian language
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Dzs is the eighth letter, and only trigraph, of the Hungarian alphabet. It is pronounced [dʒeː] as a letter, and represents the voiced postalveolar affricate (IPA: /dʒ/).

[edit] Length

In several words, it is pronounced long, e.g.

menedzser, bridzs, bridzsel, maharadzsa, lodzsa, hodzsa, tádzsik, Tádzsikisztán

in other ones, short, e.g.

tinédzser, fridzsider, büdzsé, Fudzsi

It is short without exception:

next to another consonant: lándzsa, findzsa, nindzsa, bendzsó, halandzsa, halandzsázik, Kilimandzsáró
and at the beginning of the word: dzsóker, dzsungel, dzsem, dzsip, dzsida, dzsihád, dzsigg, dzsigoló, dzseki, dzsámi, dzsembori, dzsessz, dzsinn, dzsóker, 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).

[edit] Usage

Usage of this letter is similar to dž in Slovak language. One has to remember that in Hungarian, even if 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 imitate an English j sound.