Greek alphabet













































Greek alphabet
.mw-parser-output .nobold{font-weight:normal}

Greekalphabet.svg
Type
Alphabet
Languages Greek
Time period

c. 800 BC – present[1][2]
Parent systems

Egyptian hieroglyphs

  • Proto-Sinaitic alphabet

    • Phoenician alphabet
      • Greek alphabet



Child systems

  • Gothic

  • Glagolitic

  • Cyrillic

  • Coptic

  • Armenian

  • Old Italic

  • Latin

  • Georgian

Direction Left-to-right
ISO 15924 Grek, 200
Unicode alias
Greek
Unicode range


  • U+0370–U+03FF Greek and Coptic


  • U+1F00–U+1FFF Greek Extended


The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late ninth or early eighth century BC.[3][4] It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet,[5] and was the first alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as well as consonants. In Archaic and early Classical times, the Greek alphabet existed in many different local variants, but, by the end of the fourth century BC, the Eucleidean alphabet, with twenty-four letters, ordered from alpha to omega, had become standard and it is this version that is still used to write Greek today. These twenty-four letters are: 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, Σ σ/ς, Τ τ, Υ υ, Φ φ, Χ χ, Ψ ψ, and Ω ω.


The Greek alphabet is the ancestor of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.[6] Like Latin and Cyrillic, Greek originally had only a single form of each letter; it developed the letter case distinction between uppercase and lowercase forms in parallel with Latin during the modern era. Sound values and conventional transcriptions for some of the letters differ between Ancient and Modern Greek usage, because the pronunciation of Greek has changed significantly between the fifth century BC and today. Modern and Ancient Greek also use different diacritics. Apart from its use in writing the Greek language, in both its ancient and its modern forms, the Greek alphabet today also serves as a source of technical symbols and labels in many domains of mathematics, science and other fields.




Contents






  • 1 Letters


    • 1.1 Sound values


    • 1.2 Digraphs and letter combinations


    • 1.3 Diacritics


    • 1.4 Romanization




  • 2 History


    • 2.1 Origins


    • 2.2 Archaic variants


    • 2.3 Letter names


    • 2.4 Letter shapes




  • 3 Derived alphabets


  • 4 Other uses


    • 4.1 Use for other languages


      • 4.1.1 Antiquity


      • 4.1.2 Middle Ages


      • 4.1.3 Early modern




    • 4.2 In mathematics and science


    • 4.3 Astronomy


    • 4.4 International Phonetic Alphabet


    • 4.5 Use as numerals


    • 4.6 Use by student fraternities and sororities




  • 5 Glyph variants


  • 6 Computer encodings


    • 6.1 ISO/IEC 8859-7


    • 6.2 Greek in Unicode


      • 6.2.1 Combining and letter-free diacritics




    • 6.3 Encodings with a subset of the Greek alphabet




  • 7 See also


  • 8 Notes


  • 9 References


  • 10 Bibliography


  • 11 External links




Letters


Sound values




In both Ancient and Modern Greek, the letters of the Greek alphabet 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.[7]
















































































































































































































Letter Name
Ancient pronunciation
Modern pronunciation

IPA[8]

Approximate western European equivalent

IPA[9]

Approximate western European equivalent
Α α
alpha, άλφα
Short: [a]
Long: [aː]
Short: first a as in English await[10]
Long: a as English father[10]
[a] a as English father[11]
Β β
beta, βήτα

[b][12][10]
b as in English better[13][12][10]
[v] v as in English vote[11]
Γ γ
gamma, γάμμα

[ɡ]
[ŋ] when used before γ, κ, χ, and possibly μ
g as in English get[12][10]
ng as in English sing when used before γ, κ, χ, and possibly μ[12][10][ex 1]

[ɣ] ~ [ʝ],
[ŋ][ex 2] ~ [ɲ][ex 3]
g as in Spanish lago or y as in English yellow[11]
Δ δ
delta, δέλτα
[d] d as in English delete[13][12][10]
[ð] th as in English then[11]
Ε ε
epsilon, έψιλον
[e] e as in English pet[10]
[e] e as in English pet[11]
Ζ ζ
zeta, ζήτα

[zd], or possibly [dz]
sd as in English wisdom,
or possibly dz as in English adze[14][15][note 1]
[z] z as in English zoo[11]
Η η
eta, ήτα
[ɛː] ê as in French tête[16]
[i] i as in English machine[11]
Θ θ
theta, θήτα
[tʰ] t as in English top[16][10][note 2]
[θ] th as in English thin[11]
Ι ι
iota, ιώτα
Short: [i]
Long: [iː]
Short: i as in French vite,[16]
Long: i as in English machine[11]

[i], [ç],[ex 4][ʝ],[ex 5][ɲ][ex 6]
i as in English machine[11]
Κ κ
kappa, κάππα
[k] k as in English,[16][10] but completely unaspirated[16]

[k] ~ [c]
k as in English[11]
Λ λ
la(m)bda λά(μ)βδα[note 3]
[l] l as in English lantern[13][18][10]
[l] l as in English lantern[11]
Μ μ
mu, μυ
[m] m as in English music[13][18][10]
[m] m as in English music[11]
Ν ν
nu, νυ
[n] n in English net[18]
[n] n in English net[11]
Ξ ξ
xi, ξι
[ks] x as in English fox[18]
[ks] x as in English fox[11]
Ο ο
omicron, όμικρον
[o] o as in German Gott[18]
[o] o as in German Gott, similar to English soft[11]
Π π
pi, πι
[p] p as in English top[18][10]
[p] p as in English top[11]
Ρ ρ
rho, ρώ
[r] trilled r as in Italian or Spanish[18][10][13]
[r] trilled r as in Italian or Spanish

Σ σ/ς, Ϲ ϲ[note 4]

sigma, σίγμα

[s]
[z] before β, γ, or μ
s as in English soft[10]
s as in English muse when used before β, γ, or μ[18]

[s] ~ [z]
s as in English soft[11] or s as in English muse
Τ τ
tau, ταυ
[t] t as in English coat[18][10]
[t] t as in English coat[11]
Υ υ
upsilon, ύψιλον
Short: [y]
Long: [yː]
Short: u as in French lune
Long: u as in French ruse[18]
[i] i as in English machine[11]
Φ φ
phi, φι
[pʰ] p as in English pot[22][note 2]
[f] f as in English five[11]
Χ χ
chi, χι
[kʰ] c as in English cat[10][note 2]

[x] ~ [ç]
ch as in Scottish loch ~ ch as in German ich
Ψ ψ
psi, ψι
[ps] ps as in English lapse[22][10]
[ps] ps as in English lapse[11]
Ω ω
omega, ωμέγα
[ɔː] aw as in English saw[10][note 5]
[o] o as in German Gott, similar to English soft[11]


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.[16]


  2. ^ abc The letters theta ⟨θ⟩, phi ⟨φ⟩, and chi ⟨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 letters tau ([t]), pi ([p]), and kappa ([k]) respectively.[17][15] These are not the sounds they made in classical Attic Greek.[17][15] In classical Attic Greek, these three letters were always aspirated consonants, pronounced exactly like tau, pi, and kappa respectively, only with a blast of air following the actual consonant sound.[17][15]


  3. ^ Although the letter Λ is almost universally known today as lambda (λάμβδα), the most common name for it during the Greek Classical Period (510 – 323 BC) appears to have been labda (λάβδα), without the μ.[10]


  4. ^ The letter sigma ⟨Σ⟩ has two different lowercase forms in its standard variant, ⟨σ⟩ and ⟨ς⟩, with ⟨ς⟩ being used in word-final position and ⟨σ⟩ elsewhere.[15][18][19] In some 19th-century typesetting, ⟨ς⟩ was also used word-medially at the end of a compound morpheme, 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.[19] The letter sigma also has an alternative variant, the lunate sigma (uppercase Ϲ, lowercase ϲ), which is used in all positions.[15][18][20] This form of the letter developed during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC) as a simplification of the older Σ σ/ς variant.[20] Thus, the word stasis can either be written στάσις or ϲτάϲιϲ.[21] In modern, edited Greek texts, the lunate sigma typically appears primarily in older typesetting.[18]


  5. ^ The letter omega ⟨ω⟩ is normally taught to English speakers as [oʊ], the long o as in English go, in order to more clearly distinguish it from omicron ⟨ο⟩.[22][15] This is not the sound it actually made in classical Attic Greek.[22][15]



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











































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

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 of conventional approximations of 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 several digraphs of vowel letters that formerly represented diphthongs but are now monophthongized. In addition to the four mentioned above (⟨ει, αι, οι, υι,⟩), 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] respectively.[23] The Modern Greek consonant combinations ⟨μπ⟩ and ⟨ντ⟩ stand for [b] and [d] (or [mb] and [nd]) respectively; ⟨τζ⟩ stands for [dz] and ⟨τσ⟩ stands for [t͡s]. In addition, both in Ancient and Modern Greek, the letter ⟨γ⟩, before another velar consonant, stands for the velar nasal [ŋ]; thus ⟨γγ⟩ and ⟨γκ⟩ are pronounced like English ⟨ng⟩. In analogy to ⟨μπ⟩ and ⟨ντ⟩, ⟨γκ⟩ is also used to stand for [g]. There are also the combinations ⟨γχ⟩ and ⟨γξ⟩.











































Combination
Pronunciation
Devoiced pronunciation
αυ

[av]

[af]
ευ

[ev]

[ef]
ηυ

[iv]

[if]
μπ

[b]

ντ

[d]

τζ

[dz]

τσ

[t͡s]


Diacritics



In the polytonic orthography traditionally used for ancient Greek, the stressed vowel of each word carries one of three accent marks: either the acute accent (ά), the grave accent (), or the circumflex accent (α̃ or α̑). These signs were originally designed to mark different forms of the phonological pitch accent in Ancient Greek. By the time their use became conventional and obligatory in Greek writing, in late antiquity, pitch accent was evolving into a single stress 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": the rough breathing (), marking an /h/ sound at the beginning of a word, or the smooth breathing (), marking its absence. The letter rho (ρ), although not a vowel, also carries a rough breathing in word-initial position. If a rho was geminated within a word, the first ρ always 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-called iota 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.


Another diacritic used in Greek is the diaeresis (¨), indicating a hiatus.


This system of diacritics was first developed by the scholar Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257 – c. 185/180 BC), who worked at the Musaeum in Alexandria during the third century BC.[24] 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 for textual criticism.[25] 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 as tonos, 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 in Spanish. 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, the comma has a similar function as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι (ó,ti, "whatever") from ότι (óti, "that").[26]


Romanization



There are many different methods of rendering Greek text or Greek names in the Latin script.[27] 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.[28] In this system, ⟨κ⟩ is replaced with ⟨c⟩, the diphthongs ⟨αι⟩ and ⟨οι⟩ are rendered as ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ (or ⟨æ,œ⟩) respectively; and ⟨ει⟩ and ⟨ου⟩ are simplified to ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩ respectively.[29] Smooth breathing marks are usually ignored and rough breathing marks are usually rendered as the letter ⟨h⟩.[30] 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⟩ respectively.[27] The letters ⟨θ⟩ and ⟨φ⟩ are generally rendered as ⟨th⟩ and ⟨ph⟩; ⟨χ⟩ as either ⟨ch⟩ or ⟨kh⟩; and word-initial ⟨ρ⟩ as ⟨rh⟩.[31]


Multiple different transcription conventions exist for Modern Greek.[32] These 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-letter transliteration or rather a phonetically-based transcription.[32] Standardized formal transcription systems have been defined by the International Organization for Standardization (as ISO 843),[32][33] by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names,[34] by the Library of Congress,[35] and others.







































































































Letter
Traditional Latin transliteration

Α α
A a[36]

Β β
B b[36]

Γ γ
G g[36]

Δ δ
D d[36]

Ε ε
E e[36]

Ζ ζ
Z z[36]

Η η
Ē ē[36]

Θ θ
Th th[37]

Ι ι
I i[37]

Κ κ
C c, K k[37]

Λ λ
L l[37]

Μ μ
M m[37]

Ν ν
N n[37]

Ξ ξ
X x[37]

Ο ο
O o[37]

Π π
P p[37]

Ρ ρ
R r, Rh rh[37]

Σ σ
S s[37]

Τ τ
T t[37]

Υ υ
Y y, U u[37]

Φ φ
Ph ph[37]

Χ χ
Ch ch, Kh kh[37]

Ψ ψ
Ps ps[37]

Ω ω
Ō ō[37]

History



Origins





Dipylon inscription, one of the oldest known samples of the use of the Greek alphabet, c. 740 BC


During the Mycenaean period, from around the sixteenth century to the twelfth century BC, Linear B was used to write the earliest attested form of the Greek language, known as Mycenaean Greek. This writing system, unrelated to the Greek alphabet, last appeared in the thirteenth century BC. In the late ninth century BC or early eighth century BC, the Greek alphabet emerged.[2] The period between the use of the two writing systems, during which no Greek texts are attested, is known as the Greek Dark Ages. The Greeks adopted the alphabet from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, one of the closely related scripts used for the West Semitic languages. However, the Phoenician alphabet is limited to consonants. When it was adopted for writing Greek, certain consonants were adapted to express vowels. The use of both vowels and consonants makes Greek the first alphabet in the narrow sense,[6] as distinguished from the abjads used in Semitic languages, which have letters only for consonants.[38]




Early Greek alphabet on pottery in the National 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) respectively; the glottal stop consonant /ʔ/ (|aleph) was used for [a] (Α, alpha); the pharyngeal /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

Phoenician aleph.svg

aleph

/ʔ/

Greek Alpha 03.svg
Α

alpha

/a/, /aː/

Phoenician beth.svg

beth

/b/

Greek Beta 16.svg
Β

beta

/b/

Phoenician gimel.svg

gimel

/ɡ/

Greek Gamma archaic 1.svg
Γ

gamma

/ɡ/

Phoenician daleth.svg

daleth

/d/

Greek Delta 04.svg
Δ

delta

/d/

Phoenician he.svg

he

/h/

Greek Epsilon archaic.svg
Ε

epsilon

/e/, /eː/[note 1]

Phoenician waw.svg

waw

/w/

Greek Digamma oblique.svg
Ϝ

(digamma)

/w/

Phoenician zayin.svg

zayin

/z/

Greek Zeta archaic.svg
Ζ

zeta
[zd](?)

Phoenician heth.svg

heth

/ħ/

Greek Eta archaic.svg
Η

eta

/h/, /ɛː/

Phoenician teth.svg

teth

/tˤ/

Greek Theta archaic.svg
Θ

theta

/tʰ/

Phoenician yodh.svg

yodh

/j/

Greek Iota normal.svg
Ι

iota

/i/, /iː/

Phoenician kaph.svg

kaph

/k/

Greek Kappa normal.svg
Κ

kappa

/k/

Phoenician lamedh.svg

lamedh

/l/

Greek Lambda 09.svg
Λ

lambda

/l/

Phoenician mem.svg

mem

/m/

Greek Mu 04.svg
Μ

mu

/m/

Phoenician nun.svg

nun

/n/

Greek Nu 01.svg
Ν

nu

/n/



















































































































Phoenician
Greek

Phoenician samekh.svg

samekh

/s/

Greek Xi archaic.svg
Ξ

xi

/ks/

Phoenician ayin.svg

ʿayin

/ʕ/

Greek Omicron 04.svg
Ο

omicron

/o/, /oː/[note 1]

Phoenician pe.svg

pe

/p/

Greek Pi archaic.svg
Π

pi

/p/

Phoenician sade.svg

ṣade

/sˤ/

Greek San 02.svg
Ϻ

(san)

/s/

Phoenician qoph.svg

qoph

/q/

Greek Koppa normal.svg
Ϙ

(koppa)

/k/

Phoenician res.svg

reš

/r/

Greek Rho pointed.svg
Ρ

rho

/r/

Phoenician sin.svg

šin

/ʃ/

Greek Sigma normal.svg
Σ

sigma

/s/

Phoenician taw.svg

taw

/t/

Greek Tau normal.svg
Τ

tau

/t/

Phoenician waw.svg

(waw)

/w/

Greek Upsilon normal.svg
Υ

upsilon

/u/, /uː/


Greek Phi archaic.svg
Φ

phi

/pʰ/


Greek Chi normal.svg
Χ

chi

/kʰ/


Greek Psi straight.svg
Ψ

psi

/ps/


Greek Omega normal.svg
Ω

omega

/ɔː/



Three of the original Phoenician letters dropped out of use before the alphabet 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 (called boustrophedon, 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




Distribution of "green", "red" and "blue" alphabet types, after Kirchhoff.



There were initially numerous local (epichoric) variants of the Greek alphabet, which differed in the use and non-use of the additional vowel and consonant symbols and several other features. Epichoric alphabets 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.[39] 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 Alphabets by Adolf Kirchhoff (1867).[39]


The "green" (or southern) type is the most archaic and closest to the Phoenician.[40] The "red" (or western) type is the one that was later transmitted to the West and became the ancestor of the Latin alphabet, and bears some crucial features characteristic of that later development.[40] The "blue" (or eastern) type is the one from which the later standard Greek alphabet emerged.[40]Athens used a local form of the "light blue" alphabet 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.[40][41] In the Old Attic alphabet, ΧΣ stood for /ks/ and ΦΣ for /ps/. Ε was used for all three sounds /e, eː, ɛː/ (correspondinɡ to classical Ε, ΕΙ, Η respectively), and Ο was used for all of /o, oː, ɔː/ (corresponding to classical Ο, ΟΥ, Ω respectively).[41] The letter Η (heta) was used for the consonant /h/.[41] Some variant local letter forms were also characteristic of Athenian writing, some of which were shared with the neighboring (but otherwise "red") alphabet of Euboia: a form of Λ that resembled a Latin L (Greek Lambda Athenian.svg) and a form of Σ that resembled a Latin S (Greek Sigma Z-shaped.svg).[41]
























































































































































Phoenician model

Phoenician aleph.svg

Phoenician beth.svg

Phoenician gimel.svg

Phoenician daleth.svg

Phoenician he.svg

Phoenician waw.svg

Phoenician zayin.svg

Phoenician heth.svg

Phoenician teth.svg

Phoenician yodh.svg

Phoenician kaph.svg

Phoenician lamedh.svg

Phoenician mem.svg

Phoenician nun.svg

Phoenician samekh.svg

Phoenician ayin.svg

Phoenician pe.svg

Phoenician sade.svg

Phoenician qoph.svg

Phoenician res.svg

Phoenician sin.svg

Phoenician taw.svg
Southern
"green"

Greek Alpha 03.svg

Greek Beta 16.svg

Greek Gamma archaic 1.svg

Greek Delta 04.svg

Greek Epsilon archaic.svg

Greek Digamma oblique.svg

Greek Zeta archaic.svg

Greek Eta archaic.svg


Greek Theta archaic.svg

Greek Iota normal.svg

Greek Kappa normal.svg

Greek Lambda 09.svg

Greek Mu 04.svg

Greek Nu 01.svg


Greek Omicron 04.svg

Greek Pi archaic.svg

Greek San 02.svg

Greek Koppa normal.svg

Greek Rho pointed.svg

Greek Sigma normal.svg

Greek Tau normal.svg

Greek Upsilon normal.svg*





Western
"red"

Greek Chi normal.svg

Greek Phi archaic.svg

Greek Psi straight.svg
Eastern
"light blue"


Greek Chi normal.svg
"dark blue"

Greek Xi archaic.svg

Greek Psi straight.svg
Classic Ionian



Greek Eta normal.svg



Greek Omega normal.svg
Modern alphabet
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 i k l m n ks o p s k r s t u ks ps ō

*Upsilon is also derived from waw (Phoenician waw.svg).


The classical twenty-four-letter alphabet that is now used to represent the Greek language was originally the local alphabet of Ionia.[42] By the late fifth century BC, it was commonly used by many Athenians.[42] In c. 403 BC, at the suggestion of the archon Eucleides, the Athenian Assembly formally abandoned the Old Attic alphabet and adopted the Ionian alphabet as part of the democratic reforms after the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants.[42][43] Because of Eucleides's role in suggesting the idea to adopt the Ionian alphabet, the standard twenty-four-letter Greek alphabet is sometimes known as the "Eucleidean alphabet".[42] Roughly thirty years later, the Eucleidean alphabet was adopted in Boeotia and it may have been adopted a few years previously in Macedonia.[44] By the end of the fourth century BC, it had displaced local alphabets across the Greek-speaking world to become the standard form of the Greek alphabet.[44]


Letter names


When the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet, they took over not only the letter shapes and sound values, but also the names by which the sequence of the alphabet could be recited and memorized. In Phoenician, each letter name was a word that began with the sound represented by that letter; thus ʾaleph, 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, gimel became alpha, 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 of beta, ancient /b/ regularly changed to modern /v/, and ancient /ɛː/ to modern /i/, resulting in the modern pronunciation vita). The name of lambda is attested in early sources as λάβδα besides λάμβδα;[45][10] in Modern Greek the spelling is often λάμδα, reflecting pronunciation.[10] Similarly, iota is sometimes spelled γιώτα in Modern Greek ([ʝ] is conventionally transcribed ⟨γ{ι,η,υ,ει,οι}⟩ word-initially and intervocalically before back vowels and /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.












































































































































Letter
Name
Pronunciation
Greek
Phoenician original
English
Greek (Ancient)
Greek (Modern)
English
Α
ἄλφα aleph alpha
[alpʰa] [ˈalfa]
/ˈælfə/ (About this soundlisten)
Β
βῆτα beth beta
[bɛːta] [ˈvita]
/ˈbtə/, US: /ˈbtə/
Γ
γάμμα gimel gamma
[ɡamma] [ˈɣama]
/ˈɡæmə/
Δ
δέλτα daleth delta
[delta] [ˈðelta]
/ˈdɛltə/
Η
ἦτα heth eta
[hɛːta], [ɛːta] [ˈita]
/ˈtə/, US: /ˈtə/
Θ
θῆτα teth theta
[tʰɛːta] [ˈθita]
/ˈθtə/, US: /ˈθtə/ (About this soundlisten)
Ι
ἰῶτα yodh iota
[iɔːta] [ˈʝota]
/ˈtə/ (About this soundlisten)
Κ
κάππα kaph kappa
[kappa] [ˈkapa]
/ˈkæpə/ (About this soundlisten)
Λ
λάμβδα lamedh lambda
[lambda] [ˈlamða]
/ˈlæmdə/ (About this soundlisten)
Μ
μῦ mem mu
[myː] [mi]
/mj/ (About this soundlisten); occasionally US: /m/
Ν
νῦ nun nu
[nyː] [ni]
/nj/
Ρ
ῥῶ reš rho
[rɔː] [ro]
/r/ (About this soundlisten)
Τ
ταῦ taw tau
[tau] [taf]
/t, 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, obsolete san) 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]
/ˈztə/, US: /ˈztə/
Ξ
ξεῖ, ξῖ samekh xi
[kseː] [ksi]
/z, ks/
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 . In Modern Greek these names are spelled with .























































Letter
Name
Pronunciation
Greek
English
Greek (Ancient)
Greek (Modern)
English
Ξ

ξεῖ, ξῖ
xi
[kseː] [ksi]
/z, ks/
Π

πεῖ, πῖ
pi
[peː] [pi]
/p/
Φ

φεῖ, φῖ
phi
[pʰeː] [fi]
/f/
Χ

χεῖ, χῖ
chi
[kʰeː] [çi]
/k/ (About this soundlisten)
Ψ

ψεῖ, ψῖ
psi
[pseː] [psi]
/s/, /ps/ (About this soundlisten)

The following group of vowel letters were originally called simply by their sound values as long vowels: ē, ō, ū, and ɔ. Their modern names contain adjectival qualifiers that were added during the Byzantine period, to distinguish between letters that had become confusable.[10] Thus, the letters ⟨ο⟩ and ⟨ω⟩, pronounced identically by this time, were called o mikron ("small o") and o mega ("big o") respectively.[10] The letter ⟨ε⟩ was called e psilon ("plain e") to distinguish it from the identically pronounced digraph ⟨αι⟩, while, similarly, ⟨υ⟩, which at this time was pronounced [y], was called y psilon ("plain y") to distinguish it from the identically pronounced digraph ⟨οι⟩.[10]

























































Letter
Name
Pronunciation
Greek (Ancient)
Greek (Medieval)
Greek (Modern)
English
Greek (Ancient)
Greek (Modern)
English
Ε
εἶ ἐ ψιλόν ἔψιλον epsilon
[eː] [ˈepsilon]
/ˈɛpsɪlɒn/, some UK: /ɛpˈslən/
Ο
οὖ ὀ μικρόν ὄμικρον omicron
[oː] [ˈomikron]
/ˈɒmɪkrɒn/ (About this soundlisten), traditional UK: /ˈmkrɒn/
Υ
ὐ ψιλόν ὔψιλον upsilon

[uː], [yː]
[ˈipsilon]
/jpˈslən, ˈʊpsɪlɒn/, also UK: /ʌpˈslən/, US: /ˈʌpsɪlɒn/
Ω
ὠ μέγα ὠμέγα omega
[ɔː] [oˈmeɣa]
US: /ˈmɡə/, traditional UK: /ˈmɪɡə/

Some dialects of the Aegean and Cypriot have retained long consonants and pronounce [ˈɣamːa] and [ˈkapʰa]; also, ήτα has come to be pronounced [ˈitʰa] in Cypriot.[46]


Letter shapes




A 16th-century edition of the New Testament (Gospel of John), printed in a renaissance typeface by Claude 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 alphabetic 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 are majuscule forms. 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 from papyrus manuscripts in Egypt since the Hellenistic period. Ancient handwriting developed two distinct styles: uncial writing, with carefully drawn, rounded block letters of about equal size, used as a book hand for carefully produced literary and religious manuscripts, and cursive writing, used for everyday purposes.[47] The cursive forms approached the style of lowercase letter forms, with ascenders and 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.[47] This minuscule style remained the dominant form of handwritten Greek into the modern era. During the Renaissance, western printers adopted the minuscule letter forms as lowercase printed typefaces, while modelling 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

Greek Alpha 03.svg

Greek Alpha classical.svg

Greek uncial Alpha.svg

Greek minuscule Alpha.svg
α
Α

Greek Beta 16.svg

Greek Beta classical.svg

Greek uncial Beta.svg

Greek minuscule Beta.svg
β
Β

Greek Gamma archaic 1.svg

Greek Gamma classical.svg

Greek uncial Gamma.svg

Greek minuscule Gamma.svg
γ
Γ

Greek Delta 04.svg

Greek Delta classical.svg

Greek uncial Delta.svg

Greek minuscule Delta.svg
δ
Δ

Greek Epsilon archaic.svg

Greek Epsilon classical.svg

Greek uncial Epsilon.svg

Greek minuscule Epsilon.svg
ε
Ε

Greek Zeta archaic.svg

Greek Zeta classical.svg

Greek uncial Zeta.svg

Greek minuscule Zeta.svg
ζ
Ζ

Greek Eta archaic.svg

Greek Eta classical.svg

Greek uncial Eta.svg

Greek minuscule Eta.svg
η
Η

Greek Theta archaic.svg

Greek Theta classical.svg

Greek uncial Theta.svg

Greek minuscule Theta.svg
θ
Θ

Greek Iota normal.svg

Greek Iota classical.svg

Greek uncial Iota.svg

Greek minuscule Iota.svg
ι
Ι

Greek Kappa normal.svg

Greek Kappa classical.svg

Greek uncial Kappa.svg

Greek minuscule Kappa.svg
κ
Κ

Greek Lambda 09.svg

Greek Lambda classical.svg

Greek uncial Lambda.svg

Greek minuscule Lambda.svg
λ
Λ

Greek Mu 04.svg

Greek Mu classical.svg

Greek uncial Mu.svg

Greek minuscule Mu.svg
μ
Μ

Greek Nu 01.svg

Greek Nu classical.svg

Greek uncial Nu.svg

Greek minuscule Nu.svg
ν
Ν

Greek Xi archaic.svg

Greek Xi classical.svg

Greek uncial Xi.svg

Greek minuscule Xi.svg
ξ
Ξ

Greek Omicron 04.svg

Greek Omicron classical.svg

Greek uncial Omicron.svg

Greek minuscule Omicron.svg
ο
Ο

Greek Pi archaic.svg

Greek Pi classical.svg

Greek uncial Pi.svg

Greek minuscule Pi.svg
π
Π

Greek Rho pointed.svg

Greek Rho classical.svg

Greek uncial Rho.svg

Greek minuscule Rho.svg
ρ
Ρ

Greek Sigma normal.svg

Greek Sigma classical.svg

Greek uncial Sigma.svg

Greek minuscule Sigma.svg
σς
Σ

Greek Tau normal.svg

Greek Tau classical.svg

Greek uncial Tau.svg

Greek minuscule Tau.svg
τ
Τ

Greek Upsilon normal.svg

Greek Upsilon classical.svg

Greek uncial Upsilon.svg

Greek minuscule Upsilon.svg
υ
Υ

Greek Phi 03.svg

Greek Phi archaic.svg

Greek uncial Phi.svg

Greek minuscule Phi.svg
φ
Φ

Greek Chi normal.svg

Greek Chi classical.svg

Greek uncial Chi.svg

Greek minuscule Chi.svg
χ
Χ

Greek Psi straight.svg

Greek Psi classical.svg

Greek uncial Psi.svg

Greek minuscule Psi.svg
ψ
Ψ

Greek Omega normal.svg

Greek Omega classical.svg

Greek uncial Omega.svg

Greek minuscule Omega.svg
ω
Ω

Derived alphabets




The earliest Etruscan abecedarium, from Marsiliana d'Albegna, still almost identical with contemporaneous archaic Greek alphabets




A page from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century Bible manuscript in Gothic


The Greek alphabet was the model for various others:[6]



  • The Latin alphabet, together with various other ancient scripts in Italy, adopted from an archaic form of the Greek alphabet brought to Italy by Greek colonists in the late 8th century BC, via Etruscan

  • The Gothic alphabet, devised in the 4th century AD to write the Gothic language, based on a combination of Greek and Latin uncial models[48]

  • The Glagolitic alphabet, devised in the 9th century AD for writing Old Church Slavonic

  • The Cyrillic script, which replaced the Glagolitic alphabet shortly afterwards


It is also considered a possible ancestor of the Armenian alphabet, which in turn influenced the development of the Georgian alphabet.[49]


Other uses


Use for other languages


Apart from the daughter alphabets listed above, which were adapted from Greek but developed into separate writing systems, the Greek alphabet has also been adopted at various times and in various places to write other languages.[50] For some of them, additional letters were introduced.


Antiquity



  • Most of the alphabets of Asia Minor, in use c. 800–300 BC to write languages like Lydian and Phrygian, were the early Greek alphabet with only slight modifications – as were the original Old Italic alphabets.

  • Some Paleo-Balkan languages, including Thracian. For other neighboring languages or dialects, such as Ancient Macedonian, isolated words are preserved in Greek texts, but no continuous texts are preserved.

  • The Greco-Iberian alphabet was used for writing the ancient Iberian language in parts of modern Spain.


  • Gaulish inscriptions (in modern France) used the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest

  • The Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Bible was written in Greek letters in Origen's Hexapla.

  • The Bactrian language, an Iranian language spoken in what is now Afghanistan, was written in the Greek alphabet during the Kushan Empire (65–250 AD). It adds an extra letter ⟨þ⟩ for the sh sound [ʃ].[51]

  • The Coptic alphabet adds eight letters derived from Demotic. It is still used today, mostly in Egypt, to write Coptic, the liturgical language of Egyptian Christians. Letters usually retain an uncial form different from the forms used for Greek today.


Middle Ages



  • An 8th-century Arabic fragment preserves a text in the Greek alphabet.

  • An Old Ossetic inscription of the 10th–12th centuries found in Arxyz, the oldest known attestation of an Ossetic language.

  • The Old Nubian language of Makuria (modern Sudan) adds three Coptic letters, two letters derived from Meroitic script, and a digraph of two Greek gammas used for the velar nasal sound.

  • Various South Slavic dialects, similar to the modern Bulgarian and Macedonian languages, have been written in Greek script.[52][53][54][55] The modern South Slavic languages now use modified Cyrillic alphabets.


Early modern




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




  • Turkish spoken by Orthodox Christians (Karamanlides) was often written in Greek script, and called Karamanlidika.


  • Tosk Albanian was often written using the Greek alphabet, starting in about 1500.[56] The printing press at Moschopolis published several Albanian texts in Greek script during the 18th century. It was only in 1908 that the Monastir conference standardized a Latin orthography for both Tosk and Gheg. Greek spelling is still occasionally used for the local Albanian dialects (Arvanitika) in Greece.


  • Aromanian (Vlach) has been written in Greek characters. There is not yet a standardized orthography for Aromanian, but it appears that one based on the Romanian orthography will be adopted.


  • Gagauz, a Turkic language of the northeast Balkans.


  • Surguch, a Turkic language spoken by a small group of Orthodox Christians in northern Greece.


  • Urum or Greek Tatar.


  • Pomak language in Western Thrace.


  • Judaeo-Spanish language, a Jewish dialect of Spanish, has occasionally been published in Greek characters in Greece.[57]


In mathematics and science



Greek symbols are used as symbols in mathematics, physics and other sciences. Many symbols have traditional uses, such as lower case epsilon (ε) for an arbitrarily small positive number, lower case pi (π) for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, capital sigma (Σ) for summation, and lower case sigma (σ) for standard deviation.


Astronomy



Greek letters are used to denote the brighter stars within each of the eighty-eight constellations. In most constellations, the brightest star is designated Alpha and the next brightest Beta etc. For example, the brightest star in the constellation of Centaurus is known as Alpha 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 the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).[58] 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 using serifs, to make them conform more with the typographical character of other, Latin-based letters in the phonetic alphabet. Nevertheless, in the Unicode encoding standard, the following three phonetic symbols are considered the same characters as the corresponding Greek letters proper:[59]





















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 alphabetic use, either because their conventional typographic shape is too different from the original, or because they also have secondary uses as regular alphabetic characters in some Latin-based alphabets, including separate Latin uppercase letters distinct from the Greek ones.






























































Greek letter
Phonetic letter
Uppercase
φ phi ɸ U+0278 Latin small letter phi Voiceless bilabial fricative
γ gamma ɣ U+0263 Latin small letter gamma Voiced velar fricative Ɣ U+0194
ε epsilon ɛ U+025B Latin small letter open e
(alias: epsilon)
Open-mid front unrounded vowel Ɛ U+0190
α alpha ɑ U+0251 Latin small letter alpha Open back unrounded vowel Ɑ U+2C6D
υ upsilon ʊ U+028A Latin small letter upsilon near-close near-back rounded vowel Ʊ U+01B1
ι iota ɩ U+0269 Latin small letter iota Obsolete for near-close near-front unrounded vowel now ɪ
Ɩ U+0196

The symbol in Americanist phonetic notation for the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is the Greek letter lambda ⟨λ⟩, but ⟨ɬ⟩ in the IPA. The IPA symbol for the palatal lateral approximant is ⟨ʎ⟩, which looks similar to lambda, but is actually an inverted lowercase y.


Use as numerals



Greek letters were also used to write numbers. In the classical Ionian system, the first nine letters of the alphabet 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 alphabet, three otherwise obsolete letters were retained or revived: digamma ⟨Ϝ⟩ for 6, koppa ⟨Ϙ⟩ for 90, and a rare Ionian letter for [ss], today called sampi ⟨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⟩ respectively. To mark a letter as a numeral sign, a small stroke called keraia is 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 college fraternities and sororities are named with combinations of Greek letters, and are hence also known as "Greek letter organizations".[60] This naming tradition was initiated by the foundation of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the College of William and Mary in 1776.[60] The name of this fraternal organization is an acronym for the ancient Greek phrase Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης (Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs), which means "Love of wisdom, the guide of life" and serves as the organization's motto.[60] 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.[60] The Greek letter names of most fraternal organizations today are meaningless and do not stand for anything,[60] which Caroline Winterer states is "understandable, considering that general knowledge of the ancient Greek alphabet and language has almost entirely vanished."[60]


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 respective 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. The Roman alphabet has a similar extended form with such double-digit letters when necessary, but it is used for columns in a table or chart rather than chapters of an organization.[citation needed]


Glyph variants


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



  • The symbol ϐ ("curled beta") is a cursive variant form of beta (β). In the French tradition of Ancient Greek typography, β is used word-initially, and ϐ is used word-internally.

  • The letter delta has 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 the drachma (a Δρ digraph) in the Currency Symbols block, at U+20AF (₯).

  • The letter epsilon can occur in two equally frequent stylistic variants, either shaped ϵ{displaystyle epsilon ,!}epsilon ,! ('lunate epsilon', like a semicircle with a stroke) or ε{displaystyle varepsilon ,!}varepsilon ,! (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 of theta (θ), frequent in handwriting, and used with a specialized meaning as a technical symbol.

  • The symbol ϰ ("kappa symbol") is a cursive form of kappa (κ), used as a technical symbol.

  • The symbol ϖ ("variant pi") is an archaic script form of pi (π), also used as a technical symbol.

  • The letter rho (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 letter sigma, 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 Latin c) is a medieval stylistic variant that can be used in both environments without the final/non-final distinction.

  • The capital letter upsilon (Υ) can occur in different stylistic variants, with the upper strokes either straight like a Latin Y, or slightly curled. The symbol ϒ (U+03D2) is designated specifically for the curled form, (Υ{displaystyle ,Upsilon },Upsilon ) used as a technical symbol, e.g. in physics.

  • The letter phi can occur in two equally frequent stylistic variants, either shaped as ϕ{displaystyle textstyle phi ,!}textstyle phi ,! (a circle with a vertical stroke through it) or as φ{displaystyle textstyle varphi ,!}textstyle varphi ,! (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 letter omega (Ω) has at least three stylistic variants of its capital form. The "open omega", resembling an open partial circle with the opening downward and the ends curled outward, is the standard. The two other stylistic variants, seen more often in modern typography, resemble an underscored full circle, 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 the numero sign or masculine ordinal 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 in Letterlike 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 in .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}RFC 1947.


The two principal ones still used today are ISO/IEC 8859-7 and Unicode. 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



Unicode supports polytonic orthography well enough for ordinary continuous text in modern and ancient Greek, and even many archaic forms for epigraphy. With the use of combining characters, Unicode also supports Greek philology and dialectology and various other specialized requirements. Most current text rendering engines do not render diacritics well, so, though alpha with macron and acute can be represented as U+03B1 U+0304 U+0301, this rarely renders well: ᾱ́.[citation needed]


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


This block also supports the Coptic alphabet. 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 use combining diacritical marks or 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 11.0

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
































U+1F1x




























U+1F2x
































U+1F3x































Ἷ
U+1F4x




























U+1F5x




























U+1F6x
































U+1F7x






























U+1F8x
































U+1F9x
































U+1FAx
































U+1FBx






























᾿
U+1FCx































U+1FDx





























U+1FEx
































U+1FFx





























Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 11.0

2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points



Combining and letter-free diacritics


Combining and spacing (letter-free) diacritical marks pertaining to Greek 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 alphabet


IBM code pages 437, 860, 861, 862, 863, and 865 contain the letters ΓΘΣΦΩαδεπστφ (plus β as an alternate interpretation for ß).


See also




  • Greek ligatures

  • Palamedes


Notes





  1. ^ ab Epsilon ⟨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. ^ Swiggers 1996.


  2. ^ ab Johnston 2003, pp. 263–276.


  3. ^ The date of the earliest inscribed objects; A.W. Johnston, "The alphabet", in N. Stampolidis and V. Karageorghis, eds, Sea Routes from Sidon to Huelva: Interconnections in the Mediterranean 2003:263-76, summarizes the present scholarship on the dating.


  4. ^ Cook 1987, p. 9.


  5. ^ The Development of the Greek Alphabet within the Chronology of the ANE (2009), Quote: "Naveh gives four major reasons why it is universally agreed that the Greek alphabet was developed from an early Phoenician alphabet.
    1 According to Herodutous "the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus... brought into Hellas the alphabet, 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 alphabets is identical. (Naveh 1982)"



  6. ^ abc Coulmas 1996.


  7. ^ Horrocks 2006, pp. 231–250


  8. ^ Woodard 2008, pp. 15–17


  9. ^ Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton 1998, p. 31


  10. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy Keller & Russell 2012, p. 5


  11. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw Adams 1987, pp. 6–7


  12. ^ abcde Mastronarde 2013, p. 10


  13. ^ abcde Groton 2013, p. 3


  14. ^ Hinge 2001, pp. 212–234


  15. ^ abcdefgh Keller & Russell 2012, pp. 5–6


  16. ^ abcdef Mastronarde 2013, p. 11


  17. ^ abc Mastronarde 2013, pp. 11–13


  18. ^ abcdefghijklm Mastronarde 2013, p. 12


  19. ^ ab Nicholas, Nick (2004). "Sigma: final versus non-final". Retrieved 2016-09-29.


  20. ^ ab Thompson 1912, pp. 108, 144


  21. ^ Keller & Russell 2012, p. 6


  22. ^ abcd Mastronarde 2013, p. 13


  23. ^ Additionally, the more ancient combination ⟨ωυ⟩ or ⟨ωϋ⟩ can occur in ancient especially in Ionic texts or in personal names.


  24. ^ Dickey 2007, pp. 92–93.


  25. ^ Dickey 2007, p. 93.


  26. ^ Nicolas, Nick. "Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation Archived 2012-08-06 at Archive.is". 2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014.


  27. ^ ab Verbrugghe 1999, pp. 499–511.


  28. ^ Verbrugghe 1999, pp. 499–502.


  29. ^ Verbrugghe 1999, pp. 499–502, 510–511.


  30. ^ Verbrugghe 1999, pp. 499–502, 509.


  31. ^ Verbrugghe 1999, pp. 510–511.


  32. ^ abc Verbrugghe 1999, pp. 505–507, 510–511.


  33. ^ ISO (2010). "ISO 843:1997 (Conversion of Greek characters into Latin characters)". Missing or empty |url= (help)


  34. ^ UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems (2003). "Greek". Retrieved 2012-07-15.


  35. ^ "Greek (ALA-LC Romanization Tables)". 2010. Missing or empty |url= (help)


  36. ^ abcdefg Verbrugghe 1999, p. 510.


  37. ^ abcdefghijklmnopq Verbrugghe 1999, p. 511.


  38. ^ Daniels & Bright 1996, p. 4.


  39. ^ ab Voutiras 2007, p. 270.


  40. ^ abcd Woodard 2010, pp. 26–46.


  41. ^ abcd Jeffery 1961, p. 66.


  42. ^ abcd Threatte 1980, p. 26.


  43. ^ Horrocks 2010, p. xiix.


  44. ^ ab Panayotou 2007, p. 407.


  45. ^ Liddell & Scott 1940, s.v. "λάβδα"


  46. ^ Newton, B. E. (1968). "Spontaneous gemination in Cypriot Greek". Lingua. 20: 15–57. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(68)90130-7. ISSN 0024-3841.


  47. ^ ab Thompson 1912, pp. 102–103


  48. ^ Murdoch 2004, p. 156


  49. ^ Stevenson 2007, p. 1158


  50. ^ Macrakis 1996.


  51. ^ Sims-Williams 1997.


  52. ^ Miletich 1920.


  53. ^ Mazon & Vaillant 1938.


  54. ^ Kristophson 1974, p. 11.


  55. ^ Peyfuss 1989.


  56. ^ Elsie 1991.


  57. ^ Verba Hispanica X: Los problemas del estudio de la lengua sefardí Archived 2008-04-07 at the Wayback Machine., Katja Šmid, Ljubljana, pages 113–124: Es interesante el hecho que en Bulgaria se imprimieron unas pocas publicaciones en alfabeto cirílico búlgaro y en Grecia en alfabeto griego..


  58. ^ Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge: University Press. 1999. pp. 176–181.


  59. ^ 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].


  60. ^ abcdef Winterer 2010, p. 377.



Bibliography


.mw-parser-output .refbegin{font-size:90%;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul{list-style-type:none;margin-left:0}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>ul>li,.mw-parser-output .refbegin-hanging-indents>dl>dd{margin-left:0;padding-left:3.2em;text-indent:-3.2em;list-style:none}.mw-parser-output .refbegin-100{font-size:100%}



  • Adams, Douglas Q. (1987). Essential Modern Greek Grammer. New York City, New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-25133-2.


  • Cook, B. F. (1987). Greek inscriptions. University of California Press/British Museum.


  • Coulmas, Florian (1996). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-631-21481-X.


  • Daniels, Peter T; Bright, William (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press.


  • Dickey, Eleanor (2007). Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-531293-5.


  • Elsie, Robert (1991). "Albanian Literature in Greek Script: the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Orthodox Tradition in Albanian Writing" (PDF). Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 15 (20).


  • Groton, Anne H. (2013). From Alpha to Omega: A Beginning Course in Classical Greek. Indianapolis, Indiana: Focus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-58510-473-4.


  • Hinge, George (2001). Die Sprache Alkmans: Textgeschichte und Sprachgeschichte (Ph.D.). University of Aarhus.


  • Jeffery, Lilian H. (1961). The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece: A Study of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and Its Development from the Eighth to the Fifth Centuries B. C. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.


  • Keller, Andrew; Russell, Stephanie (2012). Learn to Read Greek, Part 1. New Haven, Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11589-5.


  • Holton, David; Mackridge, Peter; Philippaki-Warburton, Irini (1998). Grammatiki tis ellinikis glossas. Athens: Pataki.


  • Horrocks, Geoffrey (2006). Ellinika: istoria tis glossas kai ton omiliton tis. Athens: Estia. [Greek translation of Greek: a history of the language and its speakers, London 1997]


  • Horrocks, Geoffrey (2010). "The Greek Alphabet". Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers (2nd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-3415-6.


  • Johnston, A. W. (2003). "The alphabet". In Stampolidis, N.; Karageorghis, V. Sea Routes from Sidon to Huelva: Interconnections in the Mediterranean 16th – 6th c. B.C. Athens: Museum of Cycladic Art. pp. 263–276.


  • Kristophson, Jürgen (1974). "Das Lexicon Tetraglosson des Daniil Moschopolitis". Zeitschrift für Balkanologie. 10: 4–128.


  • Liddell, Henry G; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon.


  • Macrakis, Stavros M (1996). "Character codes for Greek: Problems and modern solutions". In Macrakis, Michael. Greek letters: from tablets to pixels. Newcastle: Oak Knoll Press. p. 265.


  • Mastronarde, Donald J. (2013). Introduction to Attic Greek (Second ed.). Berkeley, California, Los Angeles, California, and London, England: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27571-3.


  • Mazon, André; Vaillant, André (1938). L'Evangéliaire de Kulakia, un parler slave de Bas-Vardar. Bibliothèque d'études balkaniques. 6. Paris: Librairie Droz. – selections from the Gospels in Macedonian.


  • Miletich, L. (1920). "Dva bŭlgarski ru̐kopisa s grŭtsko pismo". Bŭlgarski starini. 6.


  • Murdoch, Brian (2004). "Gothic". In Murdoch, Brian; Read, Malcolm. Early Germanic literature and culture. Woodbridge: Camden House. pp. 149–170.


  • Panayotou, A. (12 February 2007). "Ionic and Attic". A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 405–416. ISBN 978-0-521-83307-3.


  • Peyfuss, Max Demeter (1989). Die Druckerei von Moschopolis, 1731–1769: Buchdruck und Heiligenverehrung in Erzbistum Achrida. Wiener Archiv für Geschichte des Slawentums und Osteuropas. 13. Böhlau Verlag.


  • Sims-Williams, Nicholas (1997). "New Findings in Ancient Afghanistan – the Bactrian documents discovered from the Northern Hindu-Kush". Archived from the original on 2007-06-10.


  • Swiggers, Pierre (1996). "Transmission of the Phoenician Script to the West". In Daniels; Bright. The World's Writing Systems. Oxford: University Press. pp. 261–270.


  • Stevenson, Jane (2007). "Translation and the spread of the Greek and Latin alphabets in Late Antiquity". In Harald Kittel; et al. Translation: an international encyclopedia of translation studies. 2. Berlin: de Gruyter. pp. 1157–1159.


  • Threatte, Leslie (1980). The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions. I: Phonology. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-110-07344-7.


  • Thompson, Edward M (1912). An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography. Oxford: Clarendon.


  • Verbrugghe, Gerald P. (1999), "Transliteration or Transcription of Greek", The Classical World, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 92 (6): 499–511, doi:10.2307/4352343


  • Voutiras, E. (2007). "The Introduction of the Alphabet". In Christidis, Anastasios-Phoivos. A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 266–276. ISBN 978-0-521-83307-3.


  • Winterer, Caroline (2010), "Fraternities and sororities", in Grafton, Anthony; Most, Glenn W.; Settis, Salvatore, The Classical Tradition, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-03572-0


  • Woodard, Roger D. (2010), "Phoinikeia Grammata: An Alphabet for the Greek Language", in Bakker, Egbert J., A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-1-118-78291-0


  • Woodard, Roger D. (2008). "Attic Greek". In Woodard, Roger D. The ancient languages of Europe. Cambridge: University Press. pp. 14–49.



External links


The dictionary definition of Appendix:Greek script at Wiktionary


Media related to Greek alphabet at Wikimedia Commons




  • Greek and Coptic character list in Unicode

  • Examples of Greek handwriting


  • Greek Unicode Issues (Nick Nicholas) at Archive.is (archived 2012-08-05)

  • Unicode FAQ – Greek Language and Script


  • alphabetic test for Greek Unicode range (Alan Wood)

  • numeric test for Greek Unicode range


  • Classical Greek keyboard, a browser-based tool

  • Collection of free fonts: greekfontsociety.gr











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