Yes, this is recognizable to most people whose native language is
English. At least in the United States, the lowercase z in cursive
handwriting is written this way. Some decorative type fonts have a
z in this form, so it's seen fairly often in trademarks, etc.
.
In reference to type styles, "Gothic" in English usually means
"sans-serif."
Faces such as Fraktur and Schwabacher are called "Blackletter."
.
--Phillip Driscoll
.
----- Originala Mesagxo -----
De: "xeeniseit" <xeeniseit@...>
Al: <qalam@yahoogroups.com>
Sendita: Vendredon, 25an de aprilo 2003, 5:17 atm
Temo: German z-letter

> A friend of mine's just made the typographics of a name which includes
> the word "liz". He's chosen a z-letter which looks most similar to the
> numeral "3". I told him that people who don't come from a German
> country might not be able to read this. But I'm not sure about this.
>
> I believe the z-letter which looks like the numeral 3 (with the upper part
> of it in n-height) is a relict from the old German current hand, which is
> developed from the "broken" scripts, or Gothic scripts (I think "Gothic"
> is what they're called in English), e.g. the fractura or the schwabacher.
> When I was in school in Germany, we didn't use this 3-shaped z-letter at
> all, but in Swiss schools it's the standard form of the z-letter in

current

> writing, even though of course the current writing is developed from an
> antiqua.
>
> Are there other places where that 3-shaped z-letter is still in use? Would
> people be able to read it?
>
> xeeniseit