[[ Greek alphabet Α α Alpha Β β Beta Γ γ Gamma Δ δ Delta Ε ε Epsilon Ζ ζ Zeta Η η Eta Θ θ Theta Ι ι Iota Κ κ Kappa Λ λ Lambda Μ μ Mu Ν ν Nu Ξ ξ Xi Ο ο Omicron Π π Pi Ρ ρ Rho Σ σ Sigma Τ τ Tau Υ υ Upsilon Φ φ Phi Χ χ Chi Ψ ψ Psi Ω ω Omega obsolete letters Ϝ ϝ Digamma Ϙ ϙ Qoppa Ϡ ϡ Sampi Note: This article contains special characters. The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century BC. It was the first true alphabet, that is, one with a symbol for each vowel and consonant, and is the oldest alphabet in use today. The letters are also used to represent numbers—Greek numerals—in the same sorts of contexts as Roman numerals. Besides writing modern Greek, today its letters are used as mathematical symbols, particle names, as names of stars, in the names of fraternities and sororities, in the naming of supernumerary tropical cyclones, and for other purposes. The Greek alphabet originated as a modification of the Phoenician alphabet and in turn gave rise to the Latin, Cyrillic, and other alphabets, as documented in History of the alphabet. The Greek alphabet is unrelated to Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, earlier writing systems for Greek. Contents 1 Main table 2 Letter combinations and diphthongs 3 Ligatures 4 History 5 Use of the Greek alphabet for other languages 6 Greek encodings 6.1 Greek in Unicode 6.1.1 Greek and Coptic 6.1.2 Greek Extended (precomposed polytonic Greek) 6.1.3 Combining and letter-free diacritics 7 Bibliography 8 See also 9 External links 10 Special characters Main table The Greek letters and their derivations are as follows (pronunciations transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet): Letter Name Pronunciation2 Corresponding Phoenician letter Transliteration3 Greek English ancient modern ancient modern Α α ἄλφα Alpha [a] [aː] [a] a Β β βῆτα Beta [b] [v] b v Γ γ γάμμα Gamma [g] [ʝ] before [e̞] or [i]; [ɣ] otherwise g gh, g, y Δ δ δέλτα Delta [d] [ð] d d. dh Ε ε ἒ ψιλόν Epsilon [e] [e̞] e Ϝ (F)1 ϝ Ϝαυ ? Digamma [w] - w - Ζ ζ ζῆτα Zeta [zd], later [zː] [z] z Η η ἦτα Eta [ɛː] ([h]) [i] e, ē i Θ θ θῆτα Theta [tʰ] [θ] th Ι ι ἰῶτα Iota [i] [iː] [i], [j] i Κ κ κάππα Kappa [k] [c] before [e̞] or [i]; [k] otherwise k k Λ λ λάμβδα Lambda [l] [l] l Μ μ μῦ Mu [m] [m] m Ν ν νῦ Nu [n] [n] n Ξ ξ ξῖ Xi [ks] [ks] x x, ks Ο ο ὄ μικρόν Omicron [o] [o̞] o Π π πῖ Pi [p] [p] p 1   San ([z]) - s - Ϙ (Ϟ)1 ϙ   Qoppa ([k]) - q - Ρ ρ ῥῶ Rho [r], [r̥] [ɾ] r (ῥ: rh) r Σ σ ς (final) σῖγμα Sigma [s] [s] s, ss (between vowels) s Τ τ ταῦ Tau [t] [t] t Υ υ ὒ ψιλόν Upsilon ([u]) [y] [yː] [i] from u, y (between consonants) y, v, f Φ φ φῖ Phi [pʰ] [f] origin disputed (see text) ph f Χ χ χῖ Chi [kʰ] ([ks]) [ç] before [e̞] or [i]; [x] otherwise ch ch, kh Ψ ψ ψῖ Psi [ps] [ps] ps Ω ω ὦ μέγα Omega [ɔː] [o̞] o, ō o Ϡ1 ϡ   Sampi ([ss] [ks]) - ss, x - Letter removed from the alphabet in early times, before the period that is now called "classical". Only majuscules were written; the minuscule forms are a medieval development of the uncial script. Archaic pronunciations (before the classical period) are shown between parentheses. For details and different transliteration systems see Transliteration of Greek into English. Letter combinations and diphthongs Letters Pronunciation Latin transliteration archaic classical modern ᾳ aːɪ] aː] [a] a αι   aɪ] [e̞] ae ει eɪ] eː] [i] i ῃ eːɪ] eː] [i] e οι   oɪ] [i] oe, i (final) υι   yɪ] [i] ui ῳ ɔːɪ] ɔː] [o̞] o αυ   aʊ] av] before vowel or voiced consonant; af] before voiceless sound au, av ευ   eʊ] e̞v] before vowel or voiced consonant; e̞f] before voiceless sound eu, ev ηυ   ɛːʊ] iv] before vowel or voiced consonant; if] before voiceless sound eu ου oʊ] oː] uː] [u] u, ou γγ*   ŋg] ŋg] in formal speech (palatalised to [ŋɟ] before [e̞] or [i]), but often reduced to [g] (palatalised to [ɟ] before [e̞] or [i]); also pronounced [ŋɣ] in some contexts (palatalised to [ŋʝ] before [e̞]) ng γκ*   ŋk] g] at the beginning of a word (palatalised to [ɟ] before [e̞] or [i]); ŋg] otherwise (palatalised to [ŋɟ] before [e̞] or [i]), but often reduced to [g] (palatalised to [ɟ] before [e̞] or [i]) nc, nk γξ*   ŋks] ŋks] nx, nks γχ*   ŋx] ŋç] before [e̞] or [i]; ŋx] otherwise nch, nkh μπ - - [b] at the beginning of a word; mb] otherwise, but often reduced to [b] mp ντ - - [d] at the beginning of a word; nd] otherwise, but often reduced to [d] nt Some scholars see [ŋ] (agma) as a phoneme in its own right. Ligatures Before the days of printing, scribes made use of a number of ligatures to save space, in Greek as in other languages. The ligature for ου — resembling a V above an O — is still sometimes seen. For a modern use of this in the Latin alphabet, see Ou (letter) History edit History of the Alphabet Middle Bronze Age 19-15th c. BC Proto-Canaanite 14th c. BC Ugaritic 13th c. BC Phoenician 11th c. BC Samaritan 6th c. BC Aramaic 9th c. BC Brāhmī 4th c. BC Hebrew 3rd c. BC Syriac 2nd c. BC Avestan 3th c. Arabic 4th c. Greek 8th c. BC Old Italic 8th c. BC Latin 7th c. BC Runes 2nd c. Gothic 4th c. Armenian 405 Glagolitic 862 Cyrillic 10th c. Iberian Celtiberian South Arabian 9th c. BC Ge'ez 3rd-4th c. Meroitic 3rd c. BC According to legend, the inventor of the Greek alphabet was named Cadmus of Miletus, but this may be only a myth. The most notable change in the Greek alphabet, compared to its predecessor, the Phoenician alphabet, is the introduction of written vowels, without which Greek — unlike Phoenician — would be unintelligible. In fact most alphabets that contain vowels are derived ultimately from Greek, although there are exceptions (Hangul, Orkhon script, Ge'ez alphabet, Indic alphabets, and Old Hungarian script). The first vowels were alpha, epsilon, iota, omicron, and upsilon (copied from waw), modifications of either glides or breathing marks, which were mostly superfluous in Greek. In eastern Greek, which lacked breaths entirely, the letter eta was also used for a long e, and eventually the letter omega was introduced for a long o. Vowels were originally not used in Semitic alphabets, but even in the very old Ugaritic alphabet matres lectionis were used, i.e. consonant signs were used to denote vowels. Greek also introduced three new consonants, appended to the end of the alphabet as they were developed. These consonants made up for the lack of aspirates in Phoenician. In west Greek, actually, chi was used for /ks/ and psi for /kʰ/ — hence the value of our letter x, derived from chi. Over the middle ages these aspirates disappeared, so now theta, phi, and chi stand for /θ/, /f/, and /x/. The origin of those letters is disputed. The letter san was used at variance with sigma, and by classical times the latter won out, san disappearing from the alphabet. The letters waw (later called digamma) and qoppa disappeared, too, the former only needed for the western dialects and the latter never really needed at all. These lived on in the Ionic numeral system, however, which consisted of writing a series letters with precise numerical values. Sampi (apparently in a rare local glyph form from Ionia) was introduced at the end - to stand for 900. Thousands were written using a mark at the upper left ('A for 1000, etc). Originally there were several variants of the Greek alphabet, most importantly western (Chalcidian) and eastern (Ionic) Greek; the former gave rise to the Old Italic alphabet and thence to the Latin alphabet. Athens took the Ionic script to be its standard in 403 BC, and shortly thereafter the other versions disappeared. By then Greek was always written left to right, but originally it had been written right to left (with asymmetrical characters flipped), and in-between written either way - or, most likely, boustrophedon, so that the lines alternate direction. During the Middle ages, the Greek scripts underwent changes paralleling those of the Roman alphabet: while the old forms were retained as a monumental script, uncial and eventually minuscule hands came to dominate. The letter σ is even written ς at the ends of words, paralleling the use of the long and short s at the time. Aristophanes of Byzantium also introduced the process of accenting Greek letters for easier pronunciation. Because Greek minuscules arose at a (much) later date, no historic minuscule actually exists for san. Minuscule forms for the other letters were only used numerically. For number 6, modern Greeks use an old digraph called stigma (Ϛ, ϛ) instead of digamma or use στ if it is not available. For 90 they use modern z-shaped qoppa forms: Ϟ, ϟ (Note that some web browser/font combinations will show the other qoppa here). Use of the Greek alphabet for other languages The primary use of the Greek alphabet has always been to write the Greek language and related dialects (including Ancient Macedonian). However, at various times and in various places, it has also been used to write other languages. Early examples: Some Narbonese Gaulish inscriptions in southern France use the Greek alphabet (c300 BC). The Hebrew text of the Bible was written in Greek in Origen's Hexapla. An 8th century Arabic fragment preserves a text in Greek. In more modern times: 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 (Elsie, 1991). 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. The Greek-based Arvanitic alphabet is now only used in Greece. Various South Slavic dialects, similar to the modern Macedonian language, have been preserved in Greek script. The modern Macedonian language uses a modified Cyrillic alphabet. 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. Greek encodings A variety of encodings have been used for Greek online, many of them documented in RFC 1947 "Greek Character Encoding for Electronic Mail Messages". The two principal ones still used today are ISO/IEC 8859-7 and Unicode. ISO 8859-7 supports only monotonic orthography; Unicode supports polytonic orthography. 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. However, most current implementations of Unicode do not support combining characters well, so, though alpha with macron and acute can be represented as U+03B1 U+0304 U+0301, this rarely renders well: ᾱ́. For extended discussion of problematic Greek letter forms in Unicode see Greek Unicode Issues. There are 2 main blocks of Greek characters in Unicode. The first is "Greek and Coptic" (U+0370 — 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 language. 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. To write polytonic Greek, one may use combining diacritical marks or the precomposed characters in the "Greek Extended" block (U+1F00 – U+1FFF). Greek and Coptic     0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 370   Ͱ ͱ Ͳ ͳ ʹ ͵ Ͷ ͷ ͸ ͹ ͺ ͻ ͼ ͽ ; Ϳ 380   ΀ ΁ ΂ ΃ ΄ ΅ Ά · Έ Ή Ί ΋ Ό ΍ Ύ Ώ 390   ΐ Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο 3A0   Π Ρ ΢ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω Ϊ Ϋ ά έ ή ί 3B0   ΰ α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο 3C0   π ρ ς σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω ϊ ϋ ό ύ ώ Ϗ 3D0   ϐ ϑ ϒ ϓ ϔ ϕ ϖ ϗ Ϙ ϙ Ϛ ϛ Ϝ ϝ Ϟ ϟ 3E0   Ϡ ϡ Ϣ ϣ Ϥ ϥ Ϧ ϧ Ϩ ϩ Ϫ ϫ Ϭ ϭ Ϯ ϯ 3F0   ϰ ϱ ϲ ϳ ϴ ϵ ϶ Ϸ ϸ Ϲ Ϻ ϻ ϼ Ͻ Ͼ Ͽ Greek Extended (precomposed polytonic Greek)     0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 1F00   ἀ ἁ ἂ ἃ ἄ ἅ ἆ ἇ Ἀ Ἁ Ἂ Ἃ Ἄ Ἅ Ἆ Ἇ 1F10   ἐ ἑ ἒ ἓ ἔ ἕ ἖ ἗ Ἐ Ἑ Ἒ Ἓ Ἔ Ἕ ἞ ἟ 1F20   ἠ ἡ ἢ ἣ ἤ ἥ ἦ ἧ Ἠ Ἡ Ἢ Ἣ Ἤ Ἥ Ἦ Ἧ 1F30   ἰ ἱ ἲ ἳ ἴ ἵ ἶ ἷ Ἰ Ἱ Ἲ Ἳ Ἴ Ἵ Ἶ Ἷ 1F40   ὀ ὁ ὂ ὃ ὄ ὅ ὆ ὇ Ὀ Ὁ Ὂ Ὃ Ὄ Ὅ ὎ ὏ 1F50   ὐ ὑ ὒ ὓ ὔ ὕ ὖ ὗ ὘ Ὑ ὚ Ὓ ὜ Ὕ ὞ Ὗ 1F60   ὠ ὡ ὢ ὣ ὤ ὥ ὦ ὧ Ὠ Ὡ Ὢ Ὣ Ὤ Ὥ Ὦ Ὧ 1F70   ὰ ά ὲ έ ὴ ή ὶ ί ὸ ό ὺ ύ ὼ ώ ὾ ὿ 1F80   ᾀ ᾁ ᾂ ᾃ ᾄ ᾅ ᾆ ᾇ ᾈ ᾉ ᾊ ᾋ ᾌ ᾍ ᾎ ᾏ 1F90   ᾐ ᾑ ᾒ ᾓ ᾔ ᾕ ᾖ ᾗ ᾘ ᾙ ᾚ ᾛ ᾜ ᾝ ᾞ ᾟ 1FA0   ᾠ ᾡ ᾢ ᾣ ᾤ ᾥ ᾦ ᾧ ᾨ ᾩ ᾪ ᾫ ᾬ ᾭ ᾮ ᾯ 1FB0   ᾰ ᾱ ᾲ ᾳ ᾴ ᾵ ᾶ ᾷ Ᾰ Ᾱ Ὰ Ά ᾼ ᾽ ι ᾿ 1FC0   ῀ ῁ ῂ ῃ ῄ ῅ ῆ ῇ Ὲ Έ Ὴ Ή ῌ ῍ ῎ ῏ 1FD0   ῐ ῑ ῒ ΐ ῔ ῕ ῖ ῗ Ῐ Ῑ Ὶ Ί ῜ ῝ ῞ ῟ 1FE0   ῠ ῡ ῢ ΰ ῤ ῥ ῦ ῧ Ῠ Ῡ Ὺ Ύ Ῥ ῭ ΅ ` 1FF0   ῰ ῱ ῲ ῳ ῴ ῵ ῶ ῷ Ὸ Ό Ὼ Ώ ῼ ´ ῾ ῿ Combining and letter-free diacritics Combining and spacing (letter-free) diacritical marks pertaining to Greek language are: 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 (  ̓ ) "psili / comma above" (spiritus lenis) U+0314 (  ̔ ) "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". Bibliography Humez, Alexander and Nicholas, Alpha to omega: the life & times of the Greek alphabet, Godine, 1981, ISBN 087923377X. A popular history, more about Greek roots in English than about the alphabet itself. Michael S. Macrakis, ed., Greek letters: from tablets to pixels, proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Greek Font Society, Oak Knoll Press, 1996, ISBN 1884718272. Includes papers on history, typography, and character coding by Hermann Zapf, Matthew Carter, Nicolas Barker, John A. Lane, Kyle McCarter, Jerôme Peignot, Pierre MacKay, Silvio Levy, et al. Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton, 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, 1961, ISBN 0198140614. Macrakis, Stavros M., "Character codes for Greek: Problems and modern solutions" in Macrakis, 1996. Includes discussion of the Greek alphabet used for languages other than Greek. [1] Robert Elsie, "Albanian Literature in Greek Script: the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Orthodox Tradition in Albanian Writing", Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 15:20 (1991) [2]. See also Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Arvanitic alphabet Greeklish Polytonic orthography Monotonic orthography List of Greek words with English derivatives Greek letters used in mathematics Transliteration of Greek into English Greek numerals, a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet List of XML and HTML character entity references External links The Greek Alphabet A presentation of the Greek letters with pronunciation for Modern and Classical Greek. The Greek Script Online Trainer Shows common errors for each letter (e.g. υ vs. ν). Special characters Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. Such characters may be rendered as boxes, question marks, or other nonsense symbols, depending on your browser, operating system, and installed fonts. Even if you have ensured that your browser is interpreting the article as UTF-8 encoded and you have installed a font that supports a wide range of Unicode, such as Code2000, Arial Unicode MS, Lucida Sans Unicode or one of the free software Unicode fonts, you may still need to use a different browser, as browser capabilities in this regard tend to vary. als:Griechisches Alphabet ast:Alfabetu griegu bg:Гръцка азбука br:Alfabet gressianeg ca:Alfabet grec cs:Řecká abeceda da:Græske alfabet de:Griechisches Alphabet et:Kreeka tähestik el:Ελληνικό αλφάβητο es:Alfabeto griego eo:Greka alfabeto fr:Alphabet grec gl:Alfabeto grego ko:그리스 문자 hr:Grčko pismo ia:Alphabeto grec is:Grískt stafróf it:Alfabeto greco he:אלפבית יווני hu:Görög ábécé mk:Грчка азбука nl:Grieks alfabet ja:ギリシア文字 no:Det greske alfabetet nn:Det greske alfabetet pl:Alfabet grecki pt:Alfabeto grego ro:Alfabetul grec ru:Греческий алфавит sk:Grécka abeceda sl:Grška abeceda fi:Kreikkalainen kirjaimisto sv:Grekiska alfabetet th:อักษรกรีก uk:Грецька абетка wa:Alfabet grek zh:希腊字母 Search Term: "Greek_alphabet" Categories: Pages with special characters | Greek letters | Hellenic scripts | Alphabetic writing systems