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Greek Alpha bet
Ellinikó alfávito
"Greek Alpha bet" in the modern Greek language
Script type
Time period
c. 800 BC–present[1][2]
DirectionLeft-to-rightEdit this on Wikidata
Official script
LanguagesGreek
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Grek(200),​Greek
Unicode
Unicode alias
Greek
Greek Alpha bet
ΑαAlphaΝνNu
ΒβBetaΞξXi
ΓγGammaΟοOmicron
ΔδDeltaΠπPi
ΕεEpsilonΡρRho
ΖζZetaΣσςSigma
ΗηEtaΤτTau
ΘθThetaΥυUpsilon
ΙιIotaΦφPhi
ΚκKappaΧχChi
ΛλLambdaΨψPsi
ΜμMuΩωOmega
History
ϜDigammaͰHeta
ϺSanϘKoppa
Ͷ
ͲSampi
Diacritics and other symbols
Related topics

TheGreek Alpha bethas been used to write theGreek languagesince the late 9th or early 8th century BC.[3][4]It was derived from the earlierPhoenician Alpha bet,[5]and is the earliest knownAlpha betic scriptto have developed distinct letters forvowelsas well asconsonants.[6]InArchaicand earlyClassicaltimes, the Greek Alpha bet existed inmany local variants,but, by the end of the 4th century BC, theIonic-basedEuclidean Alpha bet,with 24 letters, ordered fromAlphatoOmega,had become standard throughout the Greek-speaking world[7]and is the version that is still used for Greek writing today.[8]

Theuppercase and lowercase formsof the 24 letters are:

Αα,Ββ,Γγ,Δδ,Εε,Ζζ,Ηη,Θθ,Ιι,Κκ,Λλ,Μμ,Νν,Ξξ,Οο,Ππ,Ρρ,Σσ/ς,Ττ,Υυ,Φφ,Χχ,Ψψ,Ωω.

The Greek Alpha bet is the ancestor of several scripts, such as theLatin,Gothic,Coptic,andCyrillicscripts.[9]Throughout antiquity, Greek had only a singleuppercaseform of each letter. It was written withoutdiacriticsand with littlepunctuation.[10]By the 9th century,Byzantine scribeshad begun to employ the lowercase form, which they derived from thecursivestyles of the uppercase letters.[11]Sound values and conventional transcriptions for some of the letters differ betweenAncientandModern Greekusage because the pronunciation of Greek has changed significantly between the 5th century BC and today. Additionally, Modern and Ancient Greek now usedifferent diacritics,with ancient Greek using thepolytonicorthography and modern Greek keeping only thestressaccent (acute) and thediaeresis.

Apart from its use in writing the Greek language, in both its ancient and its modern forms, the Greek Alpha bet today also serves as a source of internationaltechnical symbols and labelsin many domains ofmathematics,science,and other fields.

Letters

Sound values

Main articles:Greek orthographyandPronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching
Further information:Manners of articulation

In both Ancient and Modern Greek, the letters of the Greek Alpha bet have fairly stable and consistent symbol-to-sound mappings, making pronunciation of words largely predictable. Ancient Greek spelling was generally near-phonemic.For a number of letters, sound values differ considerably between Ancient and Modern Greek, because their pronunciation has followed a set of systematic phonological shifts that affected the language in its post-classical stages.[12]

Letter Name Ancient pronunciation Modern pronunciation
IPA[13] Approximate western European equivalent IPA[14] Approximate western European equivalent[15]
Α α Alpha,άλφα Short:[a]
Long:[aː]		 Short: similar to a as in Englishhat[16]
Long: a as in Englishfather[16]		 [a] a as in American Englishfather,but short
Β β beta,βήτα [b][17][16] b as in Englishbetter[18][17][16] [v] v as in Englishvote
Γ γ gamma,γάμμα [ɡ]
[ŋ]when used beforeγ,κ,ξ,χ,and possiblyμ		 g as in Englishget[17][16],
ng as in Englishsingwhen used beforeγ,κ,ξ,χ,and possiblyμ[17][16][ex 1]		 [ɣ]before[a],[o],[u];

[ʝ]before[e],[i];

[ŋ][ex 2]~[ɲ][ex 3]

g as in Spanishlago;

Similar to y as in Englishyellow;

ng as in Englishlong;

ñ as in Spanishaño

Δ δ delta,δέλτα [d] d as in Englishdelete[18][17][16] [ð] th as in Englishthen
Ε ε epsilon,έψιλον [e] ea as in Scottish English great[16][19]

é as in Frenchété

Similar to ay as in English overlay,but without pronouncing y.

Ζ ζ zeta,ζήτα [zd],or possibly[dz] sd as in Englishwisdom,
or possibly dz as in Englishadze[20][21][note 1]		 [z] z as in Englishzoo
Η η eta,ήτα [ɛː] e as in Englishnet,but long[23]

ai as in Englishfairy

ê as in Frenchtête[22]

[i] i as in Englishmachine,but short
Θ θ theta,θήτα [tʰ] t as in Englishtop[22][16][note 2] [θ] th as in Englishthin
Ι ι iota,ιώτα Short:[i]
Long:[iː]		 Short: i as in Frenchvite,[22]
Long: i as in Englishmachine[15]		 [i],[ç],[ex 4][ʝ],[ex 5][ɲ][ex 6] i as in Englishmachine,but short
Κ κ kappa,κάππα [k] k as in English,[22][16]but completelyunaspirated[22]as inasking [k]before[a],[o],[u];

[c]before[e],[i]

k as in Englishmake;

q as in Frenchqui

Λ λ lambda, lamda, labda,λάμβδα, λάμδα, λάβδα[note 3] [l] l as in Englishlantern[18][25][16]
Μ μ mu,μυ [m] m as in Englishmusic[18][25][16]
Ν ν nu,νυ [n] n as in Englishnet[25]
Ξ ξ xi,ξι [ks] x as in Englishfox[25]
Ο ο omicron,όμικρον [o] o as in Germanohne,similar to British Englishcall

ô as in Frenchtôt

Π π pi,πι [p] Unaspiratedp as in Englishspot[25][16]
Ρ ρ rho,ρο [r]~[ɾ] rr as in Spanishcarro;

r as in Spanishcaro[25][16][18]

Σ σ/ς[note 4] sigma,σίγμα [s]
[z]beforeβ,γ,orμ		 s as in Englishsoft[16]
s as in Englishmusewhen used beforeβ,γ,orμ[25]
Τ τ tau,ταυ [t] Unaspiratedt as in Englishstoke[25][16]
Υ υ upsilon,ύψιλον Short:[y]
Long:[yː]		 Short: u as in Frenchlune,ü as in GermanBrüder
Long: u as in Frenchruse[25]		 [i] i as in Englishmachine,but short
Φ φ phi,φι [pʰ] p as in Englishpot[27][note 2] [f] f as in Englishfive
Χ χ chi,χι [kʰ] c as in Englishcat[16][note 2] [x]before[a],[o],[u];

[ç]before[e],[i]

ch as in Scottishloch;

h as in Englishhue

Ψ ψ psi,ψι [ps] ps as in Englishlapse[27][16]
Ω ω Omega,ωμέγα [ɔː] aw as in Englishsaw[16][note 5] [o] o as in Germanohne,similar to British Englishcall
Examples
  1. ^For example, ἀγκών.
  2. ^For example, εγγραφή.
  3. ^For example, εγγεγραμμένος.
  4. ^For example, πάπια.
  5. ^For example, βια.
  6. ^For example, μια.
Notes
  1. ^By around 350 BC, zeta in the Attic dialect had shifted to become a single fricative,[z],as in modern Greek.[22]
  2. ^abcThe letterstheta⟨θ⟩,phi⟨φ⟩,andchi⟨χ⟩are normally taught to English speakers with their modern Greek pronunciations of[θ],[f],and[x]~[ç]respectively, because these sounds are easier for English speakers to distinguish from the sounds made by the letterstau([t]),pi([p]), andkappa([k]) respectively.[24][21]These are not the sounds they made in classical Attic Greek.[24][21]In classical Attic Greek, these three letters were alwaysaspirated consonants,pronounced exactly like tau, pi, and kappa respectively, only with a blast of air following the actual consonant sound.[24][21]
  3. ^The letterΛis almost universally known today aslambda(λάμβδα) except in Modern Greek and inUnicode,where it islamda(λάμδα), and the most common name for it during theGreek Classical Period(510–323 BC) appears to have beenlabda(λάβδα), without theμ.[16]
  4. ^The lettersigma⟨Σ⟩has two different lowercase forms in its standard variant, with⟨ς⟩being used in word-final position and⟨σ⟩elsewhere.[21][25][26]In some 19th-century typesetting,⟨ς⟩was also used word-medially at the end of acompoundmorpheme, e.g. "δυςκατανοήτων", marking the morpheme boundary between "δυς-κατανοήτων" ( "difficult to understand" ); modern standard practice is to spell "δυσκατανοήτων" with a non-final sigma.[26]
  5. ^The letterOmega⟨ω⟩is normally taught to English speakers as[oʊ],the long o as in Englishgo,in order to more clearly distinguish it from omicron⟨ο⟩.[27][21]This is not the sound it actually made in classical Attic Greek.[27][21]

Among consonant letters, all letters that denoted voiced plosive consonants (/b,d,g/) and aspirated plosives (/pʰ,tʰ,kʰ/) in Ancient Greek stand for correspondingfricative soundsin Modern Greek. The correspondences are as follows:

Formervoiced plosives Formeraspirates
Letter Ancient Modern Letter Ancient Modern
Labial Β β /b/ /v/ Φ φ /pʰ/ /f/
Dental Δ δ /d/ /ð/ Θ θ /tʰ/ /θ/
Dorsal Γ γ /ɡ/ [ɣ]~[ʝ] Χ χ /kʰ/ [x]~[ç]

Among the vowel symbols, Modern Greek sound values reflect the radical simplification of the vowel system of post-classical Greek, merging multiple formerly distinct vowel phonemes into a much smaller number. This leads to several groups of vowel letters denoting identical sounds today. Modern Greek orthography remains true to the historical spellings in most of these cases. As a consequence, the spellings of words in Modern Greek are often not predictable from the pronunciation alone, while the reverse mapping, from spelling to pronunciation, is usually regular and predictable.

The following vowel letters and digraphs are involved in the mergers:

Letter Ancient Modern
Η η ɛː >i
Ι ι i(ː)
ΕΙ ει eː
Υ υ u(ː) >y
ΟΙ οι oi>y
ΥΙ υι yː>y
Ω ω ɔː >o
Ο ο o
Ε ε e >e
ΑΙ αι ai

Modern Greek speakers typically use the same, modern symbol–sound mappings in reading Greek of all historical stages. In other countries, students of Ancient Greek may use a variety ofconventional approximationsof the historical sound system in pronouncing Ancient Greek.

Digraphs and letter combinations

Several letter combinations have special conventional sound values different from those of their single components. Among them are severaldigraphsof vowel letters that formerly representeddiphthongsbut are now monophthongized. In addition to the four mentioned above (⟨ει,οι, υι⟩,pronounced/i/and⟨αι⟩,pronounced/e/), there is also⟨ηι, ωι⟩,and⟨ου⟩,pronounced/u/.The Ancient Greek diphthongs⟨αυ⟩,⟨ευ⟩and⟨ηυ⟩are pronounced[av],[ev]and[iv]in Modern Greek. In some environments, they are devoiced to[af],[ef]and[if].[28]The Modern Greek consonant combinations⟨μπ⟩and⟨ντ⟩stand for[b]and[d](or[mb]and[nd]);⟨τζ⟩stands for[d͡z]and⟨τσ⟩stands for[t͡s].In addition, both in Ancient and Modern Greek, the letter⟨γ⟩,before anothervelar consonant,stands for thevelar nasal[ŋ];thus⟨γγ⟩and⟨γκ⟩are pronounced like English⟨ng⟩like in the word finger (not like in the word thing). In analogy to⟨μπ⟩and⟨ντ⟩,⟨γκ⟩is also used to stand for[g]before vowels[a],[o]and[u],and[ɟ]before[e]and[i].There are also the combinations⟨γχ⟩and⟨γξ⟩.

Combination Pronunciation Devoiced pronunciation
⟨ου⟩ [u] –
⟨αυ⟩ [av] [af]
⟨ευ⟩ [ev] [ef]
⟨ηυ⟩ [iv] [if]
⟨μπ⟩ [b]or[mb] –
⟨ντ⟩ [d]or[nd] –
⟨γκ⟩and⟨γγ⟩ [ɡ],[ɟ] or [ŋɡ] –
⟨τζ⟩ [d͡z] –
⟨τσ⟩ [t͡s] –
⟨γ⟩in⟨γχ⟩and⟨γξ⟩ [ŋ] –

Diacritics

Main article:Greek diacritics
The acute accent inaulós[avˈlos]('flute') distinguishes the word from itshomographáulos[ˈailos]('immaterial'). The smooth breathing marks the absence of an initial /h/.

In thepolytonic orthographytraditionally used for ancient Greek andkatharevousa,the stressed vowel of each word carries one of three accent marks: either theacute accent(ά), thegrave accent(ὰ), or thecircumflex accent(α̃orα̑). These signs were originally designed to mark different forms of the phonologicalpitch accentin Ancient Greek. By the time their use became conventional and obligatory in Greek writing, in late antiquity, pitch accent was evolving into a singlestress accent,and thus the three signs have not corresponded to a phonological distinction in actual speech ever since. In addition to the accent marks, every word-initial vowel must carry either of two so-called "breathing marks": therough breathing(ἁ), marking an/h/sound at the beginning of a word, or thesmooth breathing(ἀ), marking its absence. The letter rho (ρ), although not a vowel, also carries rough breathing in a word-initial position. If a rho was geminated within a word, the firstρalways had the smooth breathing and the second the rough breathing (ῤῥ) leading to the transliteration rrh.

The vowel letters⟨α, η, ω⟩carry an additional diacritic in certain words, the so-callediota subscript,which has the shape of a small vertical stroke or a miniature⟨ι⟩below the letter. This iota represents the former offglide of what were originally long diphthongs,⟨ᾱι, ηι, ωι⟩(i.e./aːi,ɛːi,ɔːi/), which became monophthongized during antiquity.

Use of diaeresis in the wordáulosindicating avowel hiatus.The acute accent is absent in the upper case.

Another diacritic used in Greek is thediaeresis(¨), indicating ahiatus.

This system of diacritics was first developed by the scholarAristophanes of Byzantium(c. 257 –c. 185/180 BC), who worked at theMusaeumin Alexandria during the third century BC.[29]Aristophanes of Byzantium also was the first to divide poems into lines, rather than writing them like prose, and also introduced a series of signs fortextual criticism.[30]In 1982, a new, simplified orthography, known as "monotonic", was adopted for official use in Modern Greek by the Greek state. It uses only a single accent mark, the acute (also known in this context astonos,i.e. simply "accent" ), marking the stressed syllable of polysyllabic words, and occasionally the diaeresis to distinguish diphthongal from digraph readings in pairs of vowel letters, making this monotonic system very similar to the accent mark system used inSpanish.The polytonic system is still conventionally used for writing Ancient Greek, while in some book printing and generally in the usage of conservative writers it can still also be found in use for Modern Greek.

Although it is not a diacritic, thecommahas a similar function as asilent letterin a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishingό,τι(ó,ti,"whatever" ) fromότι(óti,"that" ).[31]

Romanization

Main article:Romanization of Greek

There are many different methods of rendering Greek text or Greek names in the Latin script.[32]The form in which classical Greek names are conventionally rendered in English goes back to the way Greek loanwords were incorporated into Latin in antiquity.[33]In this system,⟨κ⟩is replaced with⟨c⟩,the diphthongs⟨αι⟩and⟨οι⟩are rendered as⟨ae⟩and⟨oe⟩(or⟨æ,œ⟩); and⟨ει⟩and⟨ου⟩are simplified to⟨i⟩and⟨u⟩.[34]Smooth breathing marks are usually ignored and rough breathing marks are usually rendered as the letter⟨h⟩.[35]In modern scholarly transliteration of Ancient Greek,⟨κ⟩will usually be rendered as⟨k⟩,and the vowel combinations⟨αι,οι, ει, ου⟩as⟨ai, oi, ei, ou⟩.[32]The letters⟨θ⟩and⟨φ⟩are generally rendered as⟨th⟩and⟨ph⟩;⟨χ⟩as either⟨ch⟩or⟨kh⟩;and word-initial⟨ρ⟩as⟨rh⟩.[36]

Transcription conventions for Modern Greek[37]differ widely, depending on their purpose, on how close they stay to the conventional letter correspondences of Ancient Greek-based transcription systems, and to what degree they attempt either an exact letter-by-lettertransliterationor rather a phonetically based transcription.[37]Standardized formal transcription systems have been defined by theInternational Organization for Standardization(asISO 843),[37][38]by theUnited Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names,[39]by theLibrary of Congress,[40]and others.

Letter Traditional Latin transliteration[36]
Α α A a
Β β B b
Γ γ G g
Δ δ D d
Ε ε E e
Ζ ζ Z z
Η η Ē ē
Θ θ Th th
Ι ι I i
Κ κ C c, K k
Λ λ L l
Μ μ M m
Ν ν N n
Ξ ξ X x
Ο ο O o
Π π P p
Ρ ρ R r, Rh rh
Σ σ/ς S s
Τ τ T t
Υ υ Y y, U u
Φ φ Ph ph
Χ χ Ch ch, Kh kh
Ψ ψ Ps ps
Ω ω Ō ō

History

Origins

Main article:History of the Greek Alpha bet
Dipylon inscription,one of the oldest known samples of the use of the Greek Alpha bet,c. 740 BC

During theMycenaean period,from around the sixteenth century to the twelfth century BC, a script calledLinear Bwas used to write the earliest attested form of the Greek language, known asMycenaean Greek.This writing system, unrelated to the Greek Alpha bet, last appeared in the thirteenth century BC.[8]Inscription written in the Greek Alpha bet begin to emerge from the eighth century BC onward. While early evidence of Greek letters may date no later than 770 BC,[41]the oldest known substantial and legible Greek Alpha bet texts, such as theDipylon inscriptionandNestor's cup,date fromc. 740/30 BC.[42]It is accepted that the introduction of the Alpha bet occurred some time prior to these inscriptions.[43]While earlier dates have been proposed, the Greek Alpha bet is commonly held to have originated some time in the late ninth[44]or early eighth century BC,[45]conventionally around the year 800 BC.[46]

An illustration of theNestor's cupinscription (c. 730BC) with the proposed restoration

The period between the use of the two writing systems, Linear B and the Greek Alpha bet, during which no Greek texts are attested, is known as theGreek Dark Ages.[47]The Greeks adopted the Alpha bet from the earlierPhoenician Alpha bet,one of the closely related scripts used for theWest Semitic languages,calling itGreek:Φοινικήια γράμματα'Phoenician letters'.[48]However, the Phoenician Alpha bet was limited to consonants. When it was adopted for writing Greek, certain consonants were adapted in order to express vowels. The use of both vowels and consonants makes Greek the firstAlpha betin the narrow sense,[49]as distinguished from theabjadsused inSemitic languages,which have letters only for consonants.[50]

Early Greek Alpha bet on pottery in theNational Archaeological Museum of Athens

Greek initially took over all of the 22 letters of Phoenician. Five were reassigned to denote vowel sounds: the glide consonants/j/(yodh) and/w/(waw) were used for [i] (Ι,iota) and [u] (Υ,upsilon); theglottal stopconsonant/ʔ/(aleph) was used for [a] (Α,Alpha); thepharyngeal/ʕ/(ʿayin) was turned into [o] (Ο,omicron); and the letter for/h/(he) was turned into [e] (Ε,epsilon). A doublet of waw was also borrowed as a consonant for [w] (Ϝ,digamma). In addition, the Phoenician letter for the emphatic glottal/ħ/(heth) was borrowed in two different functions by different dialects of Greek: as a letter for /h/ (Η,heta) by those dialects that had such a sound, and as an additional vowel letter for the long/ɛː/(Η,eta) by those dialects that lacked the consonant. Eventually, a seventh vowel letter for the long/ɔː/(Ω,Omega) was introduced. Greek also introduced three new consonant letters for its aspirated plosive sounds and consonant clusters: Φ (phi) for/pʰ/,Χ (chi) for/kʰ/and Ψ (psi) for/ps/.In western Greek variants, Χ was instead used for/ks/and Ψ for/kʰ/.The origin of these letters is a matter of some debate.

Phoenician Greek
aleph /ʔ/ Α Alpha /a/,/aː/
beth /b/ Β beta /b/
gimel /ɡ/ Γ gamma /ɡ/
daleth /d/ Δ delta /d/
he /h/ Ε epsilon /e/,/eː/[note 1]
waw /w/ Ϝ (digamma) /w/
zayin /z/ Ζ zeta [zd](?)
heth /ħ/ Η eta /h/,/ɛː/
teth /tˤ/ Θ theta /tʰ/
yodh /j/ Ι iota /i/,/iː/
kaph /k/ Κ kappa /k/
lamedh /l/ Λ lambda /l/
mem /m/ Μ mu /m/
nun /n/ Ν nu /n/
Phoenician Greek
samekh /s/ Ξ xi /ks/
ʿayin /ʕ/ Ο omicron /o/,/oː/[note 1]
pe /p/ Π pi /p/
ṣade /sˤ/ Ϻ (san) /s/
qoph /q/ Ϙ (koppa) /k/
reš /r/ Ρ rho /r/
šin /ʃ/ Σ sigma /s/
taw /t/ Τ tau /t/
(waw) /w/ Υ upsilon /u/,/uː/
– Φ phi /pʰ/
– Χ chi /kʰ/
– Ψ psi /ps/
– Ω Omega /ɔː/

Three of the original Phoenician letters dropped out of use before the Alpha bet took its classical shape: the letter Ϻ (san), which had been in competition with Σ (sigma) denoting the same phoneme /s/; the letter Ϙ (qoppa), which was redundant with Κ (kappa) for /k/, and Ϝ (digamma), whose sound value /w/ dropped out of the spoken language before or during the classical period.

Greek was originally written predominantly from right to left, just like Phoenician, but scribes could freely alternate between directions. For a time, a writing style with alternating right-to-left and left-to-right lines (calledboustrophedon,literally "ox-turning", after the manner of an ox ploughing a field) was common, until in the classical period the left-to-right writing direction became the norm. Individual letter shapes were mirrored depending on the writing direction of the current line.

Archaic variants

Main article:Archaic Greek Alpha bets
Distribution of "green", "red" and "blue" Alpha bet types, after Kirchhoff.

There were initially numerouslocal (epichoric) variantsof the Greek Alpha bet, which differed in the use and non-use of the additional vowel and consonant symbols and several other features. Epichoric Alpha bets are commonly divided into four major types according to their different treatments of additional consonant letters for the aspirated consonants (/pʰ, kʰ/) and consonant clusters (/ks, ps/) of Greek.[51]These four types are often conventionally labelled as "green", "red", "light blue" and "dark blue" types, based on a colour-coded map in a seminal 19th-century work on the topic,Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen AlphabetsbyAdolf Kirchhoff(1867).[51]

The "green" (or southern) type is the most archaic and closest to the Phoenician.[52]The "red" (or western) type is the one that was later transmitted to the West and became the ancestor of theLatin Alpha bet,and bears some crucial features characteristic of that later development.[52]The "blue" (or eastern) type is the one from which the later standard Greek Alpha bet emerged.[52]Athensused a local form of the "light blue" Alpha bet type until the end of the fifth century BC, which lacked the letters Ξ and Ψ as well as the vowel symbols Η and Ω.[52][53]In the Old Attic Alpha bet,ΧΣstood for/ks/andΦΣfor/ps/.Εwas used for all three sounds/e,eː,ɛː/(correspondinɡ to classicalΕ, ΕΙ, Η), andΟwas used for all of/o,oː,ɔː/(corresponding to classicalΟ, ΟΥ, Ω).[53]The letterΗ(heta) was used for the consonant/h/.[53]Some variant local letter forms were also characteristic of Athenian writing, some of which were shared with the neighboring (but otherwise "red" ) Alpha bet ofEuboia:a form ofΛthat resembled a LatinL() and a form ofΣthat resembled a LatinS().[53]

Phoenician model
Southern "green" — — * — — — — —
Western "red"
Eastern "light blue" —
"dark blue"
Classic Ionian — — — —
Modern Alpha bet Α Β Γ Δ Ε — Ζ — Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π — — Ρ Σ Τ Υ — Φ Χ Ψ Ω
Sound in Ancient Greek a b g d e w zd h ē tʰ i k l m n ks o p s k r s t u ks pʰ kʰ ps ō

*Upsilon is also derived fromwaw().

The classical twenty-four-letter Alpha bet that is now used to represent the Greek language was originally the local Alpha bet ofIonia.[54]By the late fifth century BC, it was commonly used by many Athenians.[54]Inc.403 BC, at the suggestion of thearchonEucleides,the Athenian Assembly formally abandoned the Old Attic Alpha bet and adopted the Ionian Alpha bet as part of the democratic reforms after theoverthrowof theThirty Tyrants.[54][55]Because of Eucleides's role in suggesting the idea to adopt the Ionian Alpha bet, the standard twenty-four-letter Greek Alpha bet is sometimes known as the "Eucleidean Alpha bet".[54]Roughly thirty years later, the Eucleidean Alpha bet was adopted in Boeotia and it may have been adopted a few years previously inMacedonia.[56]By the end of the fourth century BC, it had displaced local Alpha bets across the Greek-speaking world to become the standard form of the Greek Alpha bet.[56]

Letter names

When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician Alpha bet, they took over not only the letter shapes and sound values but also the names by which the sequence of the Alpha bet could be recited and memorized. In Phoenician, each letter name was a word that began with the sound represented by that letter; thusʾaleph,the word for "ox", was used as the name for the glottal stop/ʔ/,bet,or "house", for the/b/sound, and so on. When the letters were adopted by the Greeks, most of the Phoenician names were maintained or modified slightly to fit Greek phonology; thus,ʾaleph, bet, gimelbecameAlpha, beta, gamma.

The Greek names of the following letters are more or less straightforward continuations of their Phoenician antecedents. Between Ancient and Modern Greek, they have remained largely unchanged, except that their pronunciation has followed regular sound changes along with other words (for instance, in the name ofbeta,ancient /b/ regularly changed to modern /v/, and ancient /ɛː/ to modern /i/, resulting in the modern pronunciationvita). The name of lambda is attested in early sources asλάβδαbesidesλάμβδα;[57][16]in Modern Greek the spelling is oftenλάμδα,reflecting pronunciation.[16]Similarly, iota is sometimes spelledγιώταin Modern Greek ([ʝ]is conventionally transcribed⟨γ{ι,η,υ,ει,οι}⟩word-initially andintervocalicallybeforeback vowelsand/a/). In the tables below, the Greek names of all letters are given in their traditional polytonic spelling; in modern practice, like with all other words, they are usually spelled in the simplified monotonic system.

Greek Alpha bet
The names of the letters in spoken Standard Modern Greek
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Letter Name Pronunciation
Greek Phoenician original English Greek (Ancient) Greek (Modern) English
Α ἄλφα aleph Alpha [alpʰa] [ˈalfa] /ˈælfə/ⓘ
Β βῆτα beth beta [bɛːta] [ˈvita] /ˈbiːtə/,US:/ˈbeɪtə/
Γ γάμμα gimel gamma [ɡamma] [ˈɣama] /ˈɡæmə/
Δ δέλτα daleth delta [delta] [ˈðelta] /ˈdɛltə/
Η ἦτα heth eta [hɛːta],[ɛːta] [ˈita] /ˈiːtə/,US:/ˈeɪtə/
Θ θῆτα teth theta [tʰɛːta] [ˈθita] /ˈθiːtə/,US:/ˈθeɪtə/ⓘ
Ι ἰῶτα yodh iota [iɔːta] [ˈʝota] /aɪˈoʊtə/ⓘ
Κ κάππα kaph kappa [kappa] [ˈkapa] /ˈkæpə/ⓘ
Λ λάμβδα lamedh lambda [lambda] [ˈlamða] /ˈlæmdə/ⓘ
Μ μῦ mem mu [myː] [mi] /mjuː/ⓘ;occasionallyUS:/muː/
Ν νῦ nun nu [nyː] [ni] /njuː/
Ρ ῥῶ reš rho [rɔː] [ro] /roʊ/ⓘ
Τ ταῦ taw tau [tau] [taf] /taʊ,tɔː/

In the cases of the three historical sibilant letters below, the correspondence between Phoenician and Ancient Greek is less clear, with apparent mismatches both in letter names and sound values. The early history of these letters (and the fourth sibilant letter, obsoletesan) has been a matter of some debate. Here too, the changes in the pronunciation of the letter names between Ancient and Modern Greek are regular.

Letter Name Pronunciation
Greek Phoenician original English Greek (Ancient) Greek (Modern) English
Ζ ζῆτα zayin zeta [zdɛːta] [ˈzita] /ˈziːtə/,US:/ˈzeɪtə/
Ξ ξεῖ, ξῖ samekh xi [kseː] [ksi] /zaɪ,ksaɪ/
Σ σίγμα šin siɡma [siɡma] [ˈsiɣma] /ˈsɪɡmə/

In the following group of consonant letters, the older forms of the names in Ancient Greek were spelled with-εῖ,indicating an original pronunciation with-ē.In Modern Greek these names are spelled with-ι.

Letter Name Pronunciation
Greek English Greek (Ancient) Greek (Modern) English
Ξ ξεῖ,ξῖ xi [kseː] [ksi] /zaɪ,ksaɪ/
Π πεῖ,πῖ pi [peː] [pi] /paɪ/
Φ φεῖ,φῖ phi [pʰeː] [fi] /faɪ/
Χ χεῖ,χῖ chi [kʰeː] [çi] /kaɪ/ⓘ
Ψ ψεῖ,ψῖ psi [pseː] [psi] /saɪ/,/psaɪ/ⓘ

The following group of vowel letters were originally called simply by their sound values as long vowels: ē, ō, ū, andɔ.Their modern names contain adjectival qualifiers that were added during the Byzantine period, to distinguish between letters that had become confusable.[16]Thus, the letters⟨ο⟩and⟨ω⟩,pronounced identically by this time, were calledo mikron( "small o" ) ando mega( "big o" ).[16]The letter⟨ε⟩was callede psilon( "plain e" ) to distinguish it from the identically pronounced digraph⟨αι⟩,while, similarly,⟨υ⟩,which at this time was pronounced[y],was calledy psilon( "plain y" ) to distinguish it from the identically pronounced digraph⟨οι⟩.[16]

Letter Name Pronunciation
Greek (Ancient) Greek (Medieval) Greek (Modern) English Greek (Ancient) Greek (Modern) English
Ε εἶ ἐ ψιλόν ἔψιλον epsilon [eː] [ˈepsilon] /ˈɛpsɪlɒn/,someUK:/ɛpˈsaɪlən/
Ο οὖ ὀ μικρόν ὄμικρον omicron [oː] [ˈomikron] /ˈɒmɪkrɒn/,traditionalUK:/oʊˈmaɪkrɒn/
Υ ὖ ὐ ψιλόν ὔψιλον upsilon [uː],[yː] [ˈipsilon] /juːpˈsaɪlən,ˈʊpsɪlɒn/,alsoUK:/ʌpˈsaɪlən/,US:/ˈʌpsɪlɒn/
Ω ὦ ὠ μέγα ὠμέγα Omega [ɔː] [oˈmeɣa] US:/oʊˈmeɪɡə/,traditionalUK:/ˈoʊmɪɡə/

Some dialects of the Aegean andCypriothave retainedlong consonantsand pronounce[ˈɣamːa]and[ˈkapʰa];also,ήταhas come to be pronounced[ˈitʰa]in Cypriot.[58]

Letter shapes

A 16th-century edition of the New Testament (Gospel of John), printed in a renaissance typeface byClaude Garamond
Theocritus Idyll 1, lines 12–14, in script with abbreviations and ligatures from a caption in an illustrated edition of Theocritus. Lodewijk Caspar Valckenaer:Carmina bucolica,Leiden 1779.

Like Latin and other Alpha betic scripts, Greek originally had only a single form of each letter, without a distinction between uppercase and lowercase. This distinction is an innovation of the modern era, drawing on different lines of development of the letter shapes in earlier handwriting.

The oldest forms of the letters in antiquity aremajusculeforms. Besides the upright, straight inscriptional forms (capitals) found in stone carvings or incised pottery, more fluent writing styles adapted for handwriting on soft materials were also developed during antiquity. Such handwriting has been preserved especially frompapyrusmanuscripts inEgyptsince theHellenistic period.Ancient handwriting developed two distinct styles:uncialwriting, with carefully drawn, rounded block letters of about equal size, used as abook handfor carefully produced literary and religious manuscripts, andcursivewriting, used for everyday purposes.[59]The cursive forms approached the style of lowercase letter forms, withascendersand descenders, as well as many connecting lines and ligatures between letters.

In the ninth and tenth century, uncial book hands were replaced with a new, more compact writing style, with letter forms partly adapted from the earlier cursive.[59]Thisminusculestyle remained the dominant form of handwritten Greek into the modern era. During theRenaissance,western printers adopted the minuscule letter forms as lowercase printed typefaces, while modeling uppercase letters on the ancient inscriptional forms. The orthographic practice of using the letter case distinction for marking proper names, titles, etc. developed in parallel to the practice in Latin and other western languages.

Inscription Manuscript Modern print
Archaic Classical Uncial Minuscule Lowercase Uppercase
α Α
β Β
γ Γ
δ Δ
ε Ε
ζ Ζ
η Η
θ Θ
ι Ι
κ Κ
λ Λ
μ Μ
ν Ν
ξ Ξ
ο Ο
π Π
ρ Ρ
σς Σ
τ Τ
υ Υ
φ Φ
χ Χ
ψ Ψ
ω Ω

Derived Alpha bets

The earliest Etruscanabecedarium,from Marsiliana d'Albegna, still almost identical with contemporaneous archaic Greek Alpha bets
A page from theCodex Argenteus,a 6th-century Bible manuscript in Gothic

The Greek Alpha bet was the model for various others:[9]

TheArmenianandGeorgianAlpha bets are almost certainly modeled on the Greek Alpha bet, but their graphic forms are quite different.[61]

Other uses

Use for other languages

Apart from the daughter Alpha bets listed above, which were adapted from Greek but developed into separate writing systems, the Greek Alpha bet has also been adopted at various times and in various places to write other languages.[62]For some of them, additional letters were introduced.

Antiquity

Middle Ages

Early modern

18th-century title page of a book printed in Karamanli Turkish

In mathematics and science

Main article:Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering

Greek symbols are used as symbols inmathematics,physicsand othersciences.Many symbols have traditional uses, such as lower case epsilon (ε) foran arbitrarily small positive number,lower case pi (π) for theratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter,capital sigma (Σ) forsummation,and lower case sigma (σ) forstandard deviation.For many years the Greek Alpha bet was used by theWorld Meteorological Organizationfornaming North Atlantic hurricanesif a season was so active that it exhausted the regular list of storm names. This happened during the2005 season(when Alpha through Zeta were used), and the2020 season(when Alpha through Iota were used), after which the practice was discontinued.[80][81]In May 2021 theWorld Health Organizationannounced that thevariants of SARS-CoV-2of the virus would be named using letters of the Greek Alpha bet to avoid stigma and simplify communications for non-scientific audiences.[82][83]

Astronomy

Main article:Bayer designation

Greek letters are used to denote the brighter stars within each of the eighty-eightconstellations.In most constellations, the brightest star is designated Alpha and the next brightest Beta etc. For example, the brightest star in the constellation ofCentaurusis known asAlpha Centauri.For historical reasons, the Greek designations of some constellations begin with a lower ranked letter.

International Phonetic Alphabet

Several Greek letters are used as phonetic symbols in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA).[84]Several of them denote fricative consonants; the rest stand for variants of vowel sounds. The glyph shapes used for these letters in specialized phonetic fonts is sometimes slightly different from the conventional shapes in Greek typography proper, with glyphs typically being more upright and usingserifs,to make them conform more with the typographical character of other, Latin-based letters in the phonetic Alpha bet. Nevertheless, in the Unicode encoding standard, the following three phonetic symbols are considered the same characters as the corresponding Greek letters proper:[85]

β beta U+03B2 voiced bilabial fricative
θ theta U+03B8 voiceless dental fricative
χ chi U+03C7 voiceless uvular fricative

On the other hand, the following phonetic letters have Unicode representations separate from their Greek Alpha betic use, either because their conventional typographic shape is too different from the original, or because they also have secondary uses as regular Alpha betic characters in some Latin-based Alpha bets, including separate Latin uppercase letters distinct from the Greek ones.

Greek letter Phonetic letter Uppercase
φ phi U+03C6 ɸ U+0278 Voiceless bilabial fricative –
γ gamma U+03B3 ɣ U+0263 Voiced velar fricative Ɣ U+0194
ε epsilon U+03B5 ɛ U+025B Open-mid front unrounded vowel Ɛ U+0190
α Alpha U+03B1 ɑ U+0251 Open back unrounded vowel Ɑ U+2C6D
υ upsilon U+03C5 ʊ U+028A near-close near-back rounded vowel Ʊ U+01B1
ι iota U+03B9 ɩ U+0269 Obsolete fornear-close near-front unrounded vowelnowɪ Ɩ U+0196

The symbol inAmericanist phonetic notationfor thevoiceless alveolar lateral fricativeis the Greek letter lambda⟨λ⟩,but ⟨ɬ⟩ in the IPA. The IPA symbol for thepalatal lateral approximantis ⟨ʎ⟩, which looks similar to lambda, but is actually an inverted lowercasey.

Use as numerals

Main article:Greek numerals

Greek letters were also used to write numbers. In the classical Ionian system, the first nine letters of the Alpha bet stood for the numbers from 1 to 9, the next nine letters stood for the multiples of 10, from 10 to 90, and the next nine letters stood for the multiples of 100, from 100 to 900. For this purpose, in addition to the 24 letters which by that time made up the standard Alpha bet, three otherwise obsolete letters were retained or revived:digamma⟨Ϝ⟩for 6,koppa⟨Ϙ⟩for 90, and a rare Ionian letter for [ss], today calledsampi⟨Ͳ⟩,for 900. This system has remained in use in Greek up to the present day, although today it is only employed for limited purposes such as enumerating chapters in a book, similar to the way Roman numerals are used in English. The three extra symbols are today written as⟨ϛ⟩,⟨ϟ⟩and⟨ϡ⟩.To mark a letter as a numeral sign, a small stroke calledkeraiais added to the right of it.

Αʹ αʹ Alpha 1
Βʹ βʹ beta 2
Γʹ γʹ gamma 3
Δʹ δʹ delta 4
Εʹ εʹ epsilon 5
ϛʹ digamma(stigma) 6
Ζʹ ζʹ zeta 7
Ηʹ ηʹ eta 8
Θʹ θʹ theta 9
Ιʹ ιʹ iota 10
Κʹ κʹ kappa 20
Λʹ λʹ lambda 30
Μʹ μʹ mu 40
Νʹ νʹ nu 50
Ξʹ ξʹ xi 60
Οʹ οʹ omicron 70
Πʹ πʹ pi 80
ϟʹ koppa 90
Ρʹ ρʹ rho 100
Σʹ σʹ sigma 200
Τʹ τʹ tau 300
Υʹ υʹ upsilon 400
Φʹ φʹ phi 500
Χʹ χʹ chi 600
Ψʹ ψʹ psi 700
Ωʹ ωʹ Omega 800
ϡʹ sampi 900

Use by student fraternities and sororities

In North America, many collegefraternities and sororitiesare named with combinations of Greek letters, and are hence also known as "Greek letter organizations".[86]This naming tradition was initiated by the foundation of thePhi Beta Kappa Societyat theCollege of William and Maryin 1776.[86]The name of this fraternal organization is an acronym for the ancient Greek phraseΦιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης(Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs), which means "Love of wisdom, the guide of life" and serves as the organization's motto.[86]Sometimes early fraternal organizations were known by their Greek letter names because the mottos that these names stood for were secret and revealed only to members of the fraternity.[86]

Different chapters within the same fraternity are almost always (with a handful of exceptions) designated using Greek letters as serial numbers. The founding chapter of each organization is its A chapter. As an organization expands, it establishes a B chapter, a Γ chapter, and so on and so forth. In an organization that expands to more than 24 chapters, the chapter after Ω chapter is AA chapter, followed by AB chapter, etc. Each of these is still a "chapter Letter", albeit a double-digit letter just as 10 through 99 are double-digit numbers. TheRoman Alpha bethas a similar extended form with such double-digit letters when necessary, but it is used forcolumns in a table or chartrather than chapters of an organization.[87]

Glyph variants

Some letters can occur in variant shapes, mostly inherited from medievalminusculehandwriting. While their use in normal typography of Greek is purely a matter of font styles, some such variants have been given separate encodings inUnicode.

  • The symbol ϐ ( "curled beta" ) is a cursive variant form ofbeta(β). In the French tradition of Ancient Greek typography, β is used word-initially, and ϐ is used word-internally.
  • The letterdeltahas a form resembling a cursive capital letter D; while not encoded as its own form, this form is included as part of the symbol for thedrachma(a Δρ digraph) in theCurrency Symbolsblock, at U+20AF (₯).
  • The letterepsiloncan occur in two equally frequent stylistic variants, either shaped('lunate epsilon', like a semicircle with a stroke) or(similar to a reversed number 3). The symbol ϵ (U+03F5) is designated specifically for the lunate form, used as a technical symbol.
  • The symbol ϑ ( "script theta" ) is a cursive form oftheta(θ), frequent in handwriting, and used with a specialized meaning as a technical symbol.
  • The symbol ϰ ( "kappa symbol" ) is a cursive form ofkappa(κ), used as a technical symbol.
  • The symbol( "variant pi" ) is an archaic script form ofpi(π), also used as a technical symbol.
  • The letterrho(ρ) can occur in different stylistic variants, with the descending tail either going straight down or curled to the right. The symbol ϱ (U+03F1) is designated specifically for the curled form, used as a technical symbol.
  • The lettersigma,in standard orthography, has two variants: ς, used only at the ends of words, and σ, used elsewhere. The form ϲ ( "lunate sigma",resembling a Latinc) is a medieval stylistic variant that can be used in both environments without the final/non-final distinction.
  • The capital letterupsilon(Υ) can occur in different stylistic variants, with the upper strokes either straight like a LatinY,or slightly curled. The symbol ϒ (U+03D2) is designated specifically for the curled form (), used as a technical symbol, e.g. in physics.
  • The letterphican occur in two equally frequent stylistic variants, either shaped as(a circle with a vertical stroke through it) or as(a curled shape open at the top). The symbol ϕ (U+03D5) is designated specifically for the closed form, used as a technical symbol.
  • The letterOmegahas at least three stylistic variants of its capital form. The standard is the "open Omega" (Ω), resembling an open partial circle with the opening downward and the ends curled outward. The two other stylistic variants are seen more often in modern typography, resembling a raised and underscored circle (roughlyo̲), where the underscore may or may not be touching the circle on a tangent (in the former case it resembles a superscript omicron similar to that found in thenumero signor masculineordinal indicator;in the latter, it closely resembles some forms of the Latin letter Q). The open Omega is always used in symbolic settings and is encoded inLetterlike Symbols(U+2126) as a separate code point for backward compatibility.

Computer encodings

For computer usage, a variety of encodings have been used for Greek online, many of them documented inRFC1947.

The two principal ones still used today areISO/IEC 8859-7andUnicode.ISO 8859-7 supports only the monotonic orthography; Unicode supports both the monotonic and polytonic orthographies.

ISO/IEC 8859-7

For the range A0–FF (hex), it follows the Unicode range 370–3CF (see below) except that some symbols, like ©, ½, § etc. are used where Unicode has unused locations. Like all ISO-8859 encodings, it is equal to ASCII for 00–7F (hex).

Greek in Unicode

Main articles:Greek script in Unicode,Greek and Coptic,andGreek Extended

Unicodesupportspolytonic orthographywell enough for ordinary continuous text in modern and ancient Greek, and even many archaic forms forepigraphy.With the use ofcombining characters,Unicode also supports Greekphilologyanddialectologyand various other specialized requirements. Most current text rendering engines do not render diacritics well, so, though Alpha withmacronandacutecan berepresentedas U+03B1 U+0304 U+0301, this rarely renders well:ᾱ́.[88]

There are two main blocks of Greek characters inUnicode.The first is "Greek and Coptic" (U+0370 to U+03FF). This block is based onISO 8859-7and is sufficient to write Modern Greek. There are also some archaic letters and Greek-based technical symbols.

This block also supports theCoptic Alpha bet.Formerly, most Coptic letters shared codepoints with similar-looking Greek letters; but in many scholarly works, both scripts occur, with quite different letter shapes, so as of Unicode 4.1, Coptic and Greek were disunified. Those Coptic letters with no Greek equivalents still remain in this block (U+03E2 to U+03EF).

To write polytonic Greek, one may usecombining diacritical marksor the precomposed characters in the "Greek Extended" block (U+1F00 to U+1FFF).

Greek and Coptic[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart(PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+037x Ͱ ͱ Ͳ ͳ ʹ ͵ Ͷ ͷ ͺ ͻ ͼ ͽ ; Ϳ
U+038x ΄ ΅ Ά · Έ Ή Ί Ό Ύ Ώ
U+039x ΐ Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο
U+03Ax Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω Ϊ Ϋ ά έ ή ί
U+03Bx ΰ α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο
U+03Cx π ρ ς σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω ϊ ϋ ό ύ ώ Ϗ
U+03Dx ϐ ϑ ϒ ϓ ϔ ϕ ϖ ϗ Ϙ ϙ Ϛ ϛ Ϝ ϝ Ϟ ϟ
U+03Ex Ϡ ϡ Ϣ ϣ Ϥ ϥ Ϧ ϧ Ϩ ϩ Ϫ ϫ Ϭ ϭ Ϯ ϯ
U+03Fx ϰ ϱ ϲ ϳ ϴ ϵ ϶ Ϸ ϸ Ϲ Ϻ ϻ ϼ Ͻ Ͼ Ͽ
Notes
1.^As of Unicode version 16.0
2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
Greek Extended[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart(PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+1F0x ἀ ἁ ἂ ἃ ἄ ἅ ἆ ἇ Ἀ Ἁ Ἂ Ἃ Ἄ Ἅ Ἆ Ἇ
U+1F1x ἐ ἑ ἒ ἓ ἔ ἕ Ἐ Ἑ Ἒ Ἓ Ἔ Ἕ
U+1F2x ἠ ἡ ἢ ἣ ἤ ἥ ἦ ἧ Ἠ Ἡ Ἢ Ἣ Ἤ Ἥ Ἦ Ἧ
U+1F3x ἰ ἱ ἲ ἳ ἴ ἵ ἶ ἷ Ἰ Ἱ Ἲ Ἳ Ἴ Ἵ Ἶ Ἷ
U+1F4x ὀ ὁ ὂ ὃ ὄ ὅ Ὀ Ὁ Ὂ Ὃ Ὄ Ὅ
U+1F5x ὐ ὑ ὒ ὓ ὔ ὕ ὖ ὗ Ὑ Ὓ Ὕ Ὗ
U+1F6x ὠ ὡ ὢ ὣ ὤ ὥ ὦ ὧ Ὠ Ὡ Ὢ Ὣ Ὤ Ὥ Ὦ Ὧ
U+1F7x ὰ ά ὲ έ ὴ ή ὶ ί ὸ ό ὺ ύ ὼ ώ
U+1F8x ᾀ ᾁ ᾂ ᾃ ᾄ ᾅ ᾆ ᾇ ᾈ ᾉ ᾊ ᾋ ᾌ ᾍ ᾎ ᾏ
U+1F9x ᾐ ᾑ ᾒ ᾓ ᾔ ᾕ ᾖ ᾗ ᾘ ᾙ ᾚ ᾛ ᾜ ᾝ ᾞ ᾟ
U+1FAx ᾠ ᾡ ᾢ ᾣ ᾤ ᾥ ᾦ ᾧ ᾨ ᾩ ᾪ ᾫ ᾬ ᾭ ᾮ ᾯ
U+1FBx ᾰ ᾱ ᾲ ᾳ ᾴ ᾶ ᾷ Ᾰ Ᾱ Ὰ Ά ᾼ ᾽ ι ᾿
U+1FCx ῀ ῁ ῂ ῃ ῄ ῆ ῇ Ὲ Έ Ὴ Ή ῌ ῍ ῎ ῏
U+1FDx ῐ ῑ ῒ ΐ ῖ ῗ Ῐ Ῑ Ὶ Ί ῝ ῞ ῟
U+1FEx ῠ ῡ ῢ ΰ ῤ ῥ ῦ ῧ Ῠ Ῡ Ὺ Ύ Ῥ ῭ ΅ `
U+1FFx ῲ ῳ ῴ ῶ ῷ Ὸ Ό Ὼ Ώ ῼ ´ ῾
Notes
1.^As of Unicode version 16.0
2.^Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Combining and letter-free diacritics

Combiningand spacing (letter-free)diacritical markspertaining toGreek language:

Combining Spacing Sample Description
U+0300 U+0060 (̀) "varia /grave accent"
U+0301 U+00B4, U+0384 (́) "oxia / tonos /acute accent"
U+0304 U+00AF ( ̄ ) "macron"
U+0306 U+02D8 ( ̆ ) "vrachy /breve"
U+0308 U+00A8 ( ̈ ) "dialytika /diaeresis"
U+0313 U+02BC ( ̓ ) "psili / comma above" (spiritus lenis)
U+0314 U+02BD ( ̔ ) "dasia / reversed comma above" (spiritus asper)
U+0342 ( ͂ ) "perispomeni" (circumflex)
U+0343 ( ̓ ) "koronis"(= U+0313)
U+0344 U+0385 ( ̈́ ) "dialytika tonos" (deprecated, = U+0308 U+0301)
U+0345 U+037A ( ͅ ) "ypogegrammeni /iota subscript".

Encodings with a subset of the Greek Alpha bet

IBMcode pages437,860,861,862,863,and865contain the letters ΓΘΣΦΩαδεπστφ (plus β as an alternative interpretation forß).

See also

Notes

  1. ^abEpsilon⟨ε⟩and omicron⟨ο⟩originally could denote both short and long vowels in pre-classical archaic Greek spelling, just like other vowel letters. They were restricted to the function of short vowel signs in classical Greek, as the long vowels/eː/and/oː/came to be spelled instead with the digraphs⟨ει⟩and⟨ου⟩,having phonologically merged with a corresponding pair of former diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ respectively.

References

  1. ^Parker & Steele 2021,p. 2.
  2. ^Johnston 2003,pp. 263–276.
  3. ^The date of the earliest inscribed objects;Johnston 2003,pp. 263–76 summarizes the scholarship on the dating.
  4. ^See also:Parker & Steele 2021,pp. 2–3;Woodard & Scott 2014,p. 3;Horrocks 2014,p. xviii;Howatson 2013,p. 35;Swiggers 1996,p. 268;Cook 1987,p. 9
  5. ^The Development of the Greek Alphabet within the Chronology of the ANEArchived2015-04-12 at theWayback Machine(2009), Quote: "Naveh gives four major reasons why it is universally agreed that the Greek Alpha bet was developed from an early Phoenician Alpha bet.
    1 According to Herodutous "the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus... brought into Hellas the Alpha bet, which had hitherto been unknown, as I think, to the Greeks."
    2 The Greek Letters, Alpha, beta, gimmel have no meaning in Greek but the meaning of most of their Semitic equivalents is known. For example, 'aleph' means 'ox', 'bet' means 'house' and 'gimmel' means 'throw stick'.
    3 Early Greek letters are very similar and sometimes identical to the West Semitic letters.
    4 The letter sequence between the Semitic and Greek Alpha bets is identical. (Naveh 1982) "
  6. ^Horrocks 2014,p. xviii: "By redeploying letters that that denoted consonant sounds irrelevant to Greek, the vowels could now be written systematically, thus producing the first 'true' Alpha bet";Howatson 2013,p. 35;Swiggers 1996,p. 265
  7. ^Howatson 2013,p. 35;Threatte 1996,p. 271
  8. ^abHorrocks 2014,p. xviii.
  9. ^abCoulmas 1996.
  10. ^Threatte 1996,p. 272.
  11. ^Colvin 2014,pp. 87–88;Threatte 1996,p. 272
  12. ^Horrocks 2006,pp. 231–250
  13. ^Woodard 2008,pp. 15–17
  14. ^Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton 1998,p. 31
  15. ^abAdams 1987,pp. 6–7
  16. ^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyKeller & Russell 2012,p. 5
  17. ^abcdeMastronarde 2013,p. 10
  18. ^abcdeGroton 2013,p. 3
  19. ^Matthews, Ben (May 2006)."Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology: An Overview".ResearchGate.Retrieved25 October2023.
  20. ^Hinge 2001,pp. 212–234
  21. ^abcdefgKeller & Russell 2012,pp. 5–6
  22. ^abcdefMastronarde 2013,p. 11
  23. ^"Net Definition & Meaning".Britannica Dictionary.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-11-08.Retrieved2023-10-25.
  24. ^abcMastronarde 2013,pp. 11–13
  25. ^abcdefghijMastronarde 2013,p. 12
  26. ^abNicholas, Nick (2004)."Sigma: final versus non-final".Archivedfrom the original on 2016-10-21.Retrieved2016-09-29.
  27. ^abcdMastronarde 2013,p. 13
  28. ^Additionally, the more ancient combination⟨ωυ⟩or⟨ωϋ⟩can occur in ancient especially inIonictexts or in personal names.
  29. ^Dickey 2007,pp. 92–93.
  30. ^Dickey 2007,p. 93.
  31. ^Nicolas, Nick. "Greek Unicode Issues: PunctuationArchived2012-08-06 atarchive.today".2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014.
  32. ^abVerbrugghe 1999,pp. 499–511.
  33. ^Verbrugghe 1999,pp. 499–502.
  34. ^Verbrugghe 1999,pp. 499–502, 510–511.
  35. ^Verbrugghe 1999,pp. 499–502, 509.
  36. ^abVerbrugghe 1999,pp. 510–511.
  37. ^abcVerbrugghe 1999,pp. 505–507, 510–511.
  38. ^ISO(2010).ISO 843:1997 (Conversion of Greek characters into Latin characters).Archivedfrom the original on 2024-10-07.Retrieved2019-09-24.
  39. ^UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems (2003)."Greek".Archivedfrom the original on 2017-10-18.Retrieved2012-07-15.
  40. ^"Greek (ALA-LC Romanization Tables)"(PDF).Library of Congress.2010.Archived(PDF)from the original on 2023-03-29.Retrieved2019-09-24.
  41. ^Montarini & Montana 2022,pp. 18–19;Horrocks 2014,p. xviii;Niesiolowski-Spano 2007,p. 180
  42. ^Colvin 2014,pp. 83–84;Rose 2012,p. 96
  43. ^Cook 1987,p. 9
  44. ^Woodard & Scott 2014,p. 3;Horrocks 2014,p. xviii;Howatson 2013,p. 35
  45. ^Swiggers 1996,p. 268;Cook 1987,p. 9;Howatson 2013,p. 35
  46. ^Parker & Steele 2021,p. 2
  47. ^Colvin 2014,p. 53.
  48. ^"A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language", article by Roger D. Woodward (ed. Egbert J. Bakker, 2010, Wiley-Blackwell).
  49. ^Horrocks 2014,p. xviii;Coulmas 1996
  50. ^Daniels 1996,p. 4.
  51. ^abVoutiras 2007,p. 270.
  52. ^abcdWoodard 2010,pp. 26–46.
  53. ^abcdJeffery 1961,p. 66.
  54. ^abcdThreatte 1980,p. 26.
  55. ^Horrocks 2010,p. xiix.
  56. ^abPanayotou 2007,p. 407.
  57. ^Liddell & Scott 1940,s.v. "λάβδα"
  58. ^Newton, B. E. (1968). "Spontaneous gemination in Cypriot Greek".Lingua.20:15–57.doi:10.1016/0024-3841(68)90130-7.ISSN0024-3841.
  59. ^abThompson 1912,pp. 102–103
  60. ^Murdoch 2004,p. 156
  61. ^George L. Campbell, Christopher Moseley,The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets,pp. 51ff,96ff
  62. ^Macrakis 1996.
  63. ^Understanding Relations Between Scripts IIArchived2022-05-22 at theWayback MachinebyPhilip J Boyes&Philippa M Steele.Published in the UK in 2020 by Oxbow Books:"The Carian Alpha bet resembles the Greek Alpha bet, though, as in the case of Phrygian, no single Greek variant can be identified as its ancestor", "It is generally assumed that the Lydian Alpha bet is derived from the Greek Alpha bet, but the exact relationship remains unclear (Melchert 2004)"
  64. ^Britannica – Lycian AlphabetArchived2024-07-10 at theWayback Machine"The Lycian Alpha bet is clearly related to the Greek, but the exact nature of the relationship is uncertain. Several letters appear to be related to symbols of the Cretan and Cyprian writing systems."
  65. ^Scriptsource.org – CarianArchived2023-10-29 at theWayback Machine"Visually, the letters bear a close resemblance to Greek letters. Decipherment was initially attempted on the assumption that those letters which looked like Greek represented the same sounds as their closest visual Greek equivalents. However it has since been established that the phonetic values of the two scripts are very different. For example the theta θ symbol represents 'th' in Greek but 'q' in Carian. Carian was generally written from left to right, although Egyptian writers wrote primarily from right to left. It was written without spaces between words."
  66. ^Omniglot – CarianArchived2024-08-27 at theWayback Machine"The Carian Alpha bet appears in about 100 pieces of graffiti inscriptions left by Carian mercenaries who served in Egypt. A number of clay tablets, coins and monumental inscriptions have also been found. It was possibly derived from the Phoenician Alpha bet."
  67. ^Ancient Anatolian languages and cultures in contact: some methodological observationsArchived2023-09-03 at theWayback MachinebyPaola Cotticelli-Kurras&Federico Giusfredi(University of Verona, Italy)"During the Iron ages, with a brand new political balance and cultural scenario, the cultures and languages of Anatolia maintained their position of a bridge between the Aegean and the Syro-Mesopotamian worlds, while the North-West Semitic cultures of the Phoenicians and of the Aramaeans also entered the scene. Assuming the 4th century and thehellenization of Anatoliaas theterminus ante quem,the correct perspective of a contact-oriented study of the Ancient Anatolian world needs to take as an object a large net of cultures that evolved and changed over almost 16 centuries of documentary history. "
  68. ^Sims-Williams 1997.
  69. ^Rapson, E. J.(1908).Catalogue of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty, the Western Kṣatrapas, the Traikūṭaka Dynasty, and the 'Bodhi' Dynasty.London:Longman & Co.pp.cxci–cxciv,65–67,72–75.ISBN978-1-332-41465-9.
  70. ^Zaikovsky 1929
  71. ^J. Blau, "Middle and Old Arabic material for the history of stress in Arabic",Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies35:3:476–84 (October 1972)full textArchived2024-10-07 at theWayback Machine
  72. ^Ahmad Al-Jallad,The Damascus Psalm Fragment: Middle Arabic and the Legacy of Old Ḥigāzī,in seriesLate Antique and Medieval Islamic Near East(LAMINE)2,Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2020;full textArchived2021-07-11 at theWayback Machine;see alsoBible translations into Arabic
  73. ^Miletich 1920.
  74. ^Mazon & Vaillant 1938.
  75. ^Kristophson 1974,p. 11.
  76. ^Peyfuss 1989.
  77. ^Elsie 1991.
  78. ^Katja Šmid, "Los problemas del estudio de la lengua sefardí",Verba Hispanica10:1:113–24 (2002)full textArchived2024-10-07 at theWayback Machine:"Es interesante el hecho que en Bulgaria se imprimieron unas pocas publicaciones en alfabeto cirílico búlgaro y en Grecia en alfabeto griego."
  79. ^Trissino, Gian Giorgio(1524).De le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua Italiana(in Italian).Archivedfrom the original on 3 September 2023.Retrieved20 October2022– via Wikisource.
  80. ^"2020 hurricane season exhausts regular list of names".Geneva: World Meteorological Organization. September 21, 2020.Archivedfrom the original on January 25, 2024.RetrievedMay 5,2024.
  81. ^"WMO Hurricane Committee retires tropical cyclone names and ends the use of Greek Alpha bet".Geneva: World Meteorological Organization. March 17, 2021. Archived fromthe originalon December 18, 2023.RetrievedMay 5,2024.
  82. ^"WHO announces simple, easy-to-say labels for SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Interest and Concern".WHO.31 May 2021.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-12-06.Retrieved2021-06-01.
  83. ^Mohamed, Edna (2021-05-31)."Covid-19 variants to be given Greek Alpha bet names to avoid stigma".The Guardian.Archivedfrom the original on 2024-10-07.Retrieved2021-06-01.
  84. ^Handbook of the International Phonetic Association.Cambridge: University Press. 1999. pp. 176–181.
  85. ^For chi and beta, separate codepoints for use in a Latin-script environment were added in Unicode versions 7.0 (2014) and 8.0 (2015) respectively: U+AB53 "Latin small letter chi" (ꭓ) and U+A7B5 "Latin small letter beta" (ꞵ). As of 2017, the International Phonetic Association still lists the original Greek codepoints as the standard representations of the IPA symbols in question[1]Archived2019-10-14 at theWayback Machine.
  86. ^abcdWinterer 2010,p. 377.
  87. ^"How To Switch From Letters to Numbers for Columns in Excel".Indeed.Retrieved21 November2024.
  88. ^Anderson, Deborah."Preliminary Guidelines to Using Unicode for Greek".Classics@ Journal.Harvard University.Retrieved21 November2024.

Bibliography

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