Information about Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet
Type	Alphabet
Languages	Greek, with many modifications covering many languages
Time period	~900 BC to the present
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet  → Phoenician alphabet   → Greek alphabet
Child systems	Gothic Glagolitic Cyrillic Coptic Old Italic alphabet Latin alphabet
ISO 15924	Grek
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha	Νν Nu
Ββ Beta	Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma	Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta	Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon	Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta	Σσ Sigma
Ηη Eta	Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta	Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota	Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa	Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda	Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu	Ωω Omega
Obsolete letters
Ϝϝ Digamma	Ϙϙ Qoppa
Ϛϛ Stigma	Ϡϡ Sampi
Ϻϻ San	Ϸϸ Sho
Greek diacritics

The Greek alphabet (Greek: Ελληνικό αλφάβητο) is an alphabet consisting of 24 letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 8th or early 8th century BC. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel and consonant.^[1] It is the oldest alphabetic script in continuous use today. The letters were also used to represent Greek numerals (numbers), beginning in the 2nd century BC.

In addition to being used for writing modern Greek, its letters are today used as symbols in mathematics and science, particle names in physics, 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 is descended from the Phoenician alphabet and in turn gave rise to the Gothic, Glagolitic, Cyrillic, and Coptic, as well as the Latin alphabet.<ref name="Blackwell" /> The Greek alphabet is also considered a possible ancestor of the Armenian alphabet. It is unrelated to Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, earlier writing systems for Greek.

History

Main article: History of the Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet emerged several centuries after the fall of Mycenaean civilization and consequent extinction of its Linear B script, an early Greek writing system. Linear B is descended from Linear A, which was developed by the Minoans, whose language was probably unrelated to Greek; consequently the Minoan syllabary did not provide an ideal medium for the transliteration of Greek language sounds. The Greek alphabet we recognize today arose after the illiterate Greek Dark Ages — the period between the downfall of Mycenae (ca. 1200 BC) and the rise of Ancient Greece, which begins with the appearance of the epics of Homer, around 800 BC, and the institution of the Ancient Olympic Games in 776 BC.

The most notable change in the Greek alphabet, as an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet, is the introduction of written vowels, without which Greek — unlike Phoenician — would be unintelligible.<ref name="Blackwell" /> 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 α alpha, e (later ε epsilon), ι iota, o (later ο omicron), and u (later υ upsilon), modifications of Semitic glottal, aspirate, or glide consonants that were mostly superfluous in Greek: /ʔ/ (aleph), /h/ (he), /j/ (yodh), /ʕ/ (ayin), and /w/ (waw), respectively. In eastern Greek, which lacked breaths entirely, the letter eta (from the Semitic aspirate consonant /ħ/, heth) was also used for a long e, and eventually the letter omega was introduced for a long o. Vowel signs were originally not used in Semitic alphabets, although even in the very old Ugaritic alphabet matres lectionis were used, i.e. consonant signs were used to denote vowels. Matres lectionis were, however, never used systematically. Whereas in the earlier West Semitic family of writings (Phoencian, Hebrew, Moabite etc.) a sign always stood for a consonant in association with an unspecified vowel or no vowel, the Greek alphabet divided the signs into two categories, consonants ("things that sound along") and vowels, where the consonant signs always had to be accompanied by vowel signs to create a pronounceable unit.

Greek also introduced three new consonant signs, Φ, Χ and Ψ, appended to the end of the alphabet as they were developed. These consonants made up for the lack of comparable aspirates in Phoenician. In west Greek, Χ was used for /ks/ and Ψ for /kʰ/ — hence the value of the Latin letter x, derived from the western Greek alphabet. The origin of those letters is disputed.

History of the alphabet
Middle Bronze Age 18–15th c. BC Ugaritic 15th c. BC Proto-Canaanite 14th c. BC Phoenician 11th c. BC Paleo-Hebrew 10th c. BC Aramaic 8th c. BC Brāhmī & Indic 6th c. BC Tibetan 7th c. Khmer/Javanese 9th c. Hebrew 3rd c. BC Syriac 2nd c. BC Nabatean 2nd c. BC Arabic 4th c. Pahlavi 3nd c. BC Avestan 4th c. Greek 9th c. BC Etruscan 8th c. BC Latin 7th c. BC Runes 2nd c. Ogham 4th c. Gothic 3th c. Armenian 405 Glagolitic 862 Cyrillic 10th c. Samaritan 6th c. BC Iberian 4th c. BC Epigraphic South Arabian 9th c. BC Ge'ez 5–6th c. BC
Meroitic 3rd c. BC
Hangul 1443
Zhuyin 1913
complete genealogy

The letter san was used at variance with sigma, and by classical times the latter won out, san disappearing from the alphabet. The letters wau (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 of 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).

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 ligature 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).

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, while the latter is the basis of the present Greek alphabet. Athens originally used the Attic script for official documents such as laws and the text of Homer: this contained only the letters from alpha to upsilon, and used the letter H (eta) for the /h/ sound instead of for a long e. In 403 BC Athens adopted the Ionic script as its standard, 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. In the Hellenistic period, Aristophanes of Byzantium introduced the process of accenting Greek letters for easier pronunciation. 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.

Letter names

Each of the original Phoenician letter names was in fact a Phoenician word that began with the sound represented by that letter; thus 'aleph, the word for “ox,” was adopted for the /’/ sound, and beth, or “house,” for the /b/ sound, etc. When the letters were adopted by Greek speakers, most of the Phoenician names were maintained or modified slightly to fit Greek phonology; thus, 'aleph, beth, gimel became alpha, beta, gamma. In Greek, these borrowed names had no meaning except as labels for the letters. However, a few signs that were added or modified later by the Greeks do in fact have names with Greek meanings. For example, the names “omicron” and “omega” mean “small o” (“o” micron, or little) and “big o” (“o” mega, or big) in Greek. Similarly, “epsilon” and “upsilon” mean “bare (or simple) e” and “bare (or simple) u,” respectively.

Main alphabet

Below is a table listing the modern Greek letters, as well as their forms when romanized. The table also provides the equivalent Phoenician letter from which each Greek letter is derived. Pronunciations transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Also note that the classical pronunciation given below is the reconstructed pronunciation of Attic in the late 5th and early 4th century (BC). Some of the letters had different pronunciations in pre-classical times or in non-Attic dialects. For details, see History of the Greek alphabet and Ancient Greek phonology. For details on post-classical Ancient Greek pronunciation, see Koine Greek phonology.

Letter	Name				Pronunciation		Corresponding Phoenician letter	Transliteration1		Numeric value
	Ancient Greek	Medieval Greek (polytonic)	Modern Greek	Latin	Classical Ancient Greek	Modern Greek		Ancient Greek	Modern Greek
Α a	ἄλφα		άλφa	Alpha	[a] [aː]	[a]	Aleph	a		1
Β β ϐ (alternate2)	βῆτα		βήτa	Beta	[b]	[v]	Beth	b	v	2
Γ ?	γάμμα		γάμμα γάμa	Gamma	[g]	Gimel|}|}|}|}|}|} References 1. ^ Coulmas, Florian (1996). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.. ISBN 0-631-21481-X.  A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. ..... Click the link for more information. ABCs redirects here, for the Alien Big Cats, see British big cats. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters ..... Click the link for more information. Greek}}}  Writing system: Greek alphabet  Official status Official language of:  Greece  Cyprus  European Union recognised as minority language in parts of:  European Union  Italy  Turkey Regulated by: ..... Click the link for more information. 9th century BC - 8th century BC 930s BC 920s BC 910s BC - 900s BC - 890s BC 880s BC 870s BC 909 BC 908 BC 907 BC 906 BC 905 BC 904 BC 903 BC 902 BC 901 BC 900 BC - - State leaders - Sovereign states - Events and trends ..... Click the link for more information. Proto-Canaanite alphabet Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is an abjad of twenty-plus acrophonic glyphs, found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca. ..... Click the link for more information. Phoenician alphabet Child systems Paleo-Hebrew alphabet Aramaic alphabet Greek alphabet Many hypothesized others Sister systems South Arabian alphabet Unicode range U+10900 to U+1091F ISO 15924 Phnx Note ..... Click the link for more information. Gothic ISO 15924 Goth Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed by Philostorgius to Wulfila, used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. ..... Click the link for more information. Glagolitic ISO 15924 Glag A page from the Zograf Kodex with text of the Gospel of Luke Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. ..... Click the link for more information. Cyrillic alphabet Sister systems Latin alphabet Coptic alphabet Armenian Unicode range U+0400 to U+052F ISO 15924 Cyrl Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ..... Click the link for more information. Coptic alphabet Sister systems Old Nubian Latin Cyrillic Armenian Unicode range U+2C80 to U+2CFF U+03E2 to U+03EF ISO 15924 Copt Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ..... Click the link for more information. Old Italic Child systems Latin alphabet, Runic alphabet Sister systems Anatolian alphabets ISO 15924 Ital Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ..... Click the link for more information. Latin alphabet Child systems Numerous: see Alphabets derived from the Latin Sister systems Cyrillic Coptic Armenian Runic/Futhark Unicode range See Latin characters in Unicode ISO 15924 Latn Note ..... Click the link for more information. ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of writing systems (scripts). Each script is given both a four-letter code and a numeric one. ..... Click the link for more information. International Phonetic Alphabet Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The International Phonetic Alphabet History Nonstandard symbols Extended IPA Naming conventions IPA for English The ..... Click the link for more information. Unicode is an industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in any of the world's writing systems. Developed in tandem with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard ..... Click the link for more information. Alpha (Greek ἄλφα), (uppercase Α, lowercase α) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 1. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Aleph . ..... Click the link for more information. Nu (uppercase Ν, lowercase ν) is the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 50. Its Latin Alphabet equivalent is N. ..... Click the link for more information. Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β and internal ϐ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . ..... Click the link for more information. Xi (uppercase Ξ, lowercase ξ) is the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet. It is pronounced [zaɪ] by US English speakers, but [ksi] ..... Click the link for more information. Gamma (uppercase Γ, lowercase γ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Gimel . ..... Click the link for more information. Omicron (uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, literally "small o": o mikron, micron meaning 'small' in contrast to omega) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 70. ..... Click the link for more information. Delta (uppercase Δ, lowercase δ) is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Dalet . ..... Click the link for more information. Pi (uppercase Π, lower case π) is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 80. In Modern Greek, the name of the letter is pronounced /pi/ ..... Click the link for more information. Epsilon (uppercase Ε, lowercase ε) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 5. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He . ..... Click the link for more information. Rho (uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ϱ) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Semitic Rêš "head" (see Resh). ..... Click the link for more information. Zeta (uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Zayin . Letters that arose from Zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З (Ze). ..... Click the link for more information. Sigma (upper case Σ, lower case σ, lower case in word-final position ς) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 200. ..... Click the link for more information. Eta (uppercase Η, lowercase η) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 8. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Heth . Letters that arose from Eta include the Latin H and the Cyrillic letter И. ..... Click the link for more information. Tau (uppercase Τ, lowercase τ) is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300. This letter in English is pronounced taʊ ..... Click the link for more information. Theta (uppercase Θ, lowercase θ or ϑ) is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 9. ..... Click the link for more information. 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