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| Diacritics and other symbols | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The letterϸ (sometimes calledsho orsan) was a letter added to theGreek alphabet in order to write theBactrian language.[1] It was similar in appearance to theAnglo-Saxon andIcelandic letterthorn (þ), which has typically been used to represent it in modern print, although they are historically unrelated. It probably represented a sound similar to English "sh" ([ʃ]). Its conventional transliteration in Latin is⟨š⟩.[2]
Its original name and position in the Bactrian alphabet, if it had any, are unknown. Some authors have called it "san", on the basis of the hypothesis that it was a survival or reintroduction of the archaic Greek letterSan.[3] This letterϸ closely resembles, perhaps coincidentally, the letter⟨𐊮⟩ of the Greek-basedCarian alphabet which may have also stood for[ʃ]. The name "sho" was coined for the letter for purposes of modern computer encoding in 2002, on the basis of analogy with "rho" (ρ), the letter with which it seems to be graphically related.[1] Ϸ was added toUnicode in version 4.0 (2003), in an uppercase and lowercase character designed for modern typography.
The modernCypriot Greek dialect also has a voiceless postalveolar fricative, represented with thecombining caron⟨ˇ⟩, by the authors of the"Syntychies" lexicographic database at theUniversity of Cyprus,[4] e.g.μάσ̌σ̌αλλα[ˈmaʃːalːa] "mashallah".When diacritics are not used, an epenthetic⟨ι⟩ – often accompanied by the systematic substitution of the preceding consonant letter – may be used to the same effect, e.g. StandardModern Greekχέρι[ˈçeɾi] → Cypriot Greekσιέρι[ˈʃeɾi].
TheTsakonian language, considered a Hellenic language or a very divergent dialect of Greek, has a voiceless postalveolar fricative.It is spelled⟨σχ⟩ or, inThanasis Costakis' orthography,⟨σ̌⟩.
| Appearance | Code points | Name |
|---|---|---|
| Ϸ | U+03F7 | GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SHO |
| ϸ | U+03F8 | GREEK SMALL LETTER SHO |
