U+305A "ず" Hiragana Letter Zu Unicode Character

U+305A "ず" Hiragana Letter Zu is a Japanese kana character used primarily to represent the syllable "zu" in the hiragana writing system, one of the three scripts of the Japanese language. It is a voiced variant of the hiragana character "す" (su), marked by the addition of a dakuten diacritic (two small strokes) to indicate the change in pronunciation from the unvoiced "su" to the voiced "zu". This character appears commonly in Japanese text, forming part of words and grammatical structures, such as in the verb "to be" (です, desu) when conjugated or in compound words that require voicing. As a foundational element of written Japanese, "ず" plays a key role in conveying precise meaning and grammatical nuance in both formal and informal contexts.