Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha Νν Nu Ββ Beta Ξξ Xi Γγ Gamma Οο Omicron Δδ Delta Ππ Pi Εε Epsilon Ρρ Rho Ζζ Zeta Σσς 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
History
Archaic local variants Ϝϝ Digamma Ͱͱ Heta Ϻϻ San Ϙϙ Koppa Ͷͷ Tsan Digamma Ͳͳ Sampi Ϸϸ Sho
Diacritics and other symbols
Diacritics ά ὰ ᾶ ἀ ἁ ᾱ ᾰ ϊ ᾳ σ̌ Ligatures ȢȢ Ϗϗ Ϛϛ ⳨ ☧ Numerals (Attic) ϛ(6) ϟ(90) ϡ(900)
Related topics
Use as scientific symbols Orthography Romanization Cyrillization
Category
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Greek orthography has used a variety ofdiacritics starting in theHellenistic period. The more complexpolytonic orthography (Greek:πολυτονικὸ σύστημα γραφῆς,romanized: polytonikò sýstīma grafī̂s), which includes five diacritics, notatesAncient Greek phonology. The simplermonotonic orthography (Greek:μονοτονικό σύστημα γραφής,romanized: monotonikó sýstīma grafī́s), introduced in 1982, corresponds toModern Greek phonology, and requires only two diacritics.

Polytonic orthography (from Ancient Greek πολύς (polýs) 'much, many' and τόνος (tónos) 'accent') is the standard system forAncient Greek andMedieval Greek and includes:

• acute accent (´)
• circumflex accent (῀)
• grave accent (`); these 3 accents indicate different kinds ofpitch accent
• rough breathing (῾) indicates the presence of the/h/ sound before a letter
• smooth breathing (᾿) indicates the absence of/h/.

Since in Modern Greek the pitch accent has been replaced by adynamic accent (stress), and/h/ was lost, most polytonic diacritics have no phonetic significance, and merely reveal the underlying Ancient Greeketymology.

Monotonic orthography (from Ancient Greek μόνος (mónos) 'single' and τόνος (tónos) 'accent') is the standard system forModern Greek. It retains two diacritics:

• single accent ortonos (΄) that indicatesstress, and
• diaeresis (¨), which usually indicates ahiatus but occasionally indicates adiphthong: compare modern Greekπαϊδάκια (/paiˈðaka/, "lamb chops"), with a diphthong, andπαιδάκια (/peˈðaka/, "little children") with asimple vowel.

Atonos and adiaeresis can be combined on a single vowel to indicate a stressed vowel after a hiatus, as in the verbταΐζω (/taˈizo/, "I feed").

Although it is not a diacritic, thehypodiastole (comma) has in a similar way the function of a sound-changing diacritic in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishingό,τι (ó,ti, "whatever") fromότι (óti, "that").^[1]

The originalGreek alphabet did not have diacritics. The Greek alphabet is attested since the 8th century BC, and until 403 BC, variations of the Greek alphabet—which exclusively used what are now known ascapitals—were used in different cities and areas. From 403 on, the Athenians decided to employ a version of theIonian alphabet. With the spread ofKoine Greek, a continuation of theAttic dialect, the Ionic alphabet superseded the other alphabets, known asepichoric, with varying degrees of speed. The Ionian alphabet, however, also consisted only of capitals.

Therough andsmooth breathings were introduced in classical times in order to represent the presence or absence of an/h/ inAttic Greek, which had adopted a form of the alphabet in which the letter ⟨Η⟩ (eta) was no longer available for this purpose as it was used to represent thelong vowel/ɛː/.

During the Hellenistic period (3rd century BC),Aristophanes of Byzantium introduced the breathings—marks of aspiration (the aspiration however being already noted on certain inscriptions, not by means of diacritics but by regular letters or modified letters)—and the accents, of which the use started to spread, to become standard in the Middle Ages. It was not until the 2nd century AD thataccents and breathings appeared sporadically inpapyri. The need for the diacritics arose from the gradual divergence between spelling and pronunciation.

Themajuscule, i.e., a system where text is written entirely incapital letters, was used until the 8th century, when theminuscule polytonic supplanted it.

By theByzantine period, the modern rule that turns anacute accent (oxeia) on the last syllable into agrave accent (bareia)—except before a punctuation sign or anenclitic—had been firmly established. Certain authors have argued that the grave originally denoted the absence of accent; the modern rule is, in their view, a purelyorthographic convention. Originally, certainproclitic words lost their accent before another word and received the grave, and later this was generalized to all words in the orthography. Others—drawing on, for instance, evidence fromancient Greek music—consider that the grave was "linguistically real" and expressed a word-final modification of the acute pitch.^[2][3][4]

In the later development of the language, the ancientpitch accent was replaced by an intensity orstress accent, making the three types of accent identical, and the/h/ sound became silent.

At the beginning of the 20th century (official since the 1960s), the grave was replaced by the acute, and theiota subscript and the breathings on the rho were abolished, except in printed texts.^[5] Greektypewriters from that era did not have keys for the grave accent or the iota subscript, and these diacritics were also not taught in primary schools where instruction was inDemotic Greek.

Following the official adoption of thedemotic form of the language, the monotonic orthography was imposed by law in 1982. The latter uses only the acute accent (or sometimes avertical bar, intentionally distinct from any of the traditional accents) anddiaeresis and omits the breathings. This simplification has been criticized on the grounds that polytonic orthography provides a cultural link to the past.^[6][7]

Some individuals, institutions, and publishers continue to prefer the polytonic system (with or without grave accent), though an official reintroduction of the polytonic system does not seem probable. TheGreek Orthodox church, the daily newspaperEstia, as well as books written inKatharevousa continue to use the polytonic orthography. Though the polytonic system was not used in Classical Greece, these critics argue that modern Greek, as a continuation ofByzantine and post-medieval Greek, should continue their writing conventions.

Some textbooks of Ancient Greek for foreigners have retained the breathings, but dropped all the accents in order to simplify the task for the learner.^[8]

Polytonic Greek uses many different diacritics in several categories. At the time of Ancient Greek, each of these marked a significant distinction in pronunciation.

Monotonic orthography for Modern Greek uses only two diacritics, thetonos anddiaeresis (sometimes used in combination) that have significance in pronunciation, similar to vowels inSpanish. Initial/h/ is no longer pronounced, and so the rough and smooth breathings are no longer necessary. The unique pitch patterns of the three accents have disappeared, and only astress accent remains. The iota subscript was a diacritic invented to mark anetymological vowel that was no longer pronounced, so it was dispensed with as well.

The transliteration of Greek names follows Latin transliteration of Ancient Greek; modern transliteration is different, and does not distinguish many letters and digraphs that have merged byiotacism.

Acute	Grave
Circumflex (alternative forms)

The accents (Ancient Greek:τόνοι,romanized: tónoi, singular:τόνος,tónos) are placed on an accented vowel or on the last of the two vowels of a diphthong (ά, but αί) and indicatedpitch patterns in Ancient Greek. The precise nature of the patterns is not certain, but the general nature of each is known.

Theacute accent (ὀξεῖα,oxeîa, 'sharp' or "high") – 'ά' – marked high pitch on a short vowel or rising pitch on a long vowel.

The acute is also used on the first of two (or occasionally three) successive vowels in Modern Greek to indicate that they are pronounced together as a stressed diphthong.

Thegrave accent (βαρεῖα,bareîa, 'heavy' or "low", modernvaria) – 'ὰ' – marked normal or low pitch.

The grave was originally written on all unaccented syllables.^[9] By the Byzantine period it was only used to replace the acute at the end of a word if another accented word follows immediately withoutpunctuation.

Thecircumflex (περισπωμένη,perispōménē, 'twisted around') – 'ᾶ' – marked high and falling pitch within one syllable. In distinction to the angled Latin circumflex, the Greek circumflex is printed in the form of either atilde (◌̃) or aninverted breve (◌̑). It was also known asὀξύβαρυςoxýbarys "high-low" or "acute-grave", and its original form (^) was from a combining of the acute and grave diacritics. Because of its compound nature, it only appeared on long vowels or diphthongs.

Rough	Smooth
Combined with accents

The breathings were written over a vowel or ρ.

Therough breathing (Ancient Greek:δασὺ πνεῦμα,romanized: dasù pneûma;Latinspīritus asper)—'ἁ'—indicates a voiceless glottal fricative (/h/) before the vowel in Ancient Greek. In Greek grammar, this is known as aspiration. This is different fromaspiration inphonetics, which applies to consonants, not vowels.

• Rho (Ρρ) at the beginning of a word always takes rough breathing, probably markingunvoiced pronunciation. In Latin, this wastranscribed asrh.
• Upsilon (Υυ) at the beginning of a word always takes rough breathing. Thus, words from Greek begin withhy-, never withy-.

Thesmooth breathing (ψιλὸν πνεῦμα,psīlòn pneûma; Latinspīritus lēnis)—'ἀ'—marked the absence of/h/.

A double rho in the middle of a word was originally written with smooth breathing on the first rho and rough breathing on the second one (διάῤῥοια). In Latin, this was transcribed asrrh (diarrhoea ordiarrhea).

Thecoronis (κορωνίς,korōnís, 'curved') marks a vowel contracted bycrasis. It was formerly an apostrophe placed after the contracted vowel, but is now placed over the vowel and is identical to the smooth breathing. Unlike the smooth breathing, it often occurs inside a word.

Different styles of subscript/adscript iotas in the wordᾠδῇ, ("ode", dative)

Theiota subscript (ὑπογεγραμμένη,hypogegramménē, 'written under')—'ι'—is placed under the long vowelsᾱ,η, andω to mark the ancient long diphthongsᾱι,ηι, andωι, in which the ι is no longer pronounced.

Next to a capital, the iota subscript is usually written as a lower-case letter (Αι), in which case it is callediota adscript (προσγεγραμμένη,prosgegramménē, 'written next to').

In Ancient Greek, thediaeresis (Greek:διαίρεσις orδιαλυτικά,dialytiká, 'distinguishing') –ϊ – appears on the lettersι andυ to show that a pair of vowel letters is pronounced separately, rather than as adiphthong or as adigraph for a simple vowel.

In Modern Greek, the diaeresis usually indicates that two successive vowels are pronounced separately (as inκοροϊδεύω/ko.ro.iˈðe.vo/, "I trick, mock"), but occasionally, it marks vowels that are pronounced together as an unstressed diphthong rather than as adigraph (as inμποϊκοτάρω/boj.koˈtar.o/, "I boycott"). The distinction between two separate vowels and an unstressed diphthong is not always clear, although two separate vowels are far more common.

The diaeresis can be combined with the acute, grave and circumflex but never with breathings, since the letter with the diaeresis cannot be the first vowel of the word.^[10]

In Modern Greek, the combination of the acute and diaeresis indicates a stressed vowel after a hiatus.

In textbooks and dictionaries of Ancient Greek, themacron—'ᾱ'—andbreve—'ᾰ'—are often used overα,ι, andυ to indicate that it is long or short, respectively.

In some modern non-standard orthographies of Greek dialects, such asCypriot Greek,Griko, andTsakonian, acaron (ˇ) may be used on some consonants to show a palatalized pronunciation.^[11][12] They are not encoded as precombined characters in Unicode, so they are typed by adding theU+030C ◌̌COMBINING CARON to the Greek letter. Latin diacritics on Greek letters may not be supported by many fonts, and as a fall-back a caron may be replaced by an iota ⟨ι⟩ following the consonant.

An example of a Greek letter with a combining caron and its pronunciation:τ̌/c/.

A dot diacritic was used above some consonants and vowels inKaramanli Turkish, which was written with the Greek alphabet.^[13]

Diacritics are written above lower-case letters and at the upper left of capital letters. In the case of adigraph, the second vowel takes the diacritics. A breathing diacritic is written to the left of an acute or grave accent but below a circumflex. Accents are written above a diaeresis or between its two dots.

In uppercase (all-caps), accents and breathings are eliminated, in titlecase they appear to the left of the letter rather than above it. Unlike other diacritics, the dieresis is kept above letters also in uppercase.Different conventions exist for the handling of theiota subscript.Diacritics can be found above capital letters in medieval texts and in the French typographical tradition up to the 19th century.^[14]

There have been problems in representing polytonic Greek on computers, and in displaying polytonic Greek on computer screens and printouts, but these have largely been overcome by the advent ofUnicode and appropriatefonts.

TheIETF language tags have registered subtag codes for the different orthographies:^[15]

• el-monoton for monotonic Greek.
• el-polyton for polytonic Greek.

While thetónos of monotonic orthography looks similar to theoxeîa of polytonic orthography in most typefaces, Unicode has historically separate symbols for letters with these diacritics. For example, the monotonic "Greek small letter alpha withtónos" is at U+03AC, while the polytonic "Greek small letter alpha withoxeîa" is at U+1F71. The monotonic and polytonic accent however have beende jure equivalent since 1986, and accordingly theoxeîa diacritic in Unicode decomposes canonically to the monotonictónos—both are underlyingly treated as equivalent to the multiscript acute accent, U+0301, since letters withoxia decompose to letters withtonos, which decompose in turn to base letter plus multiscript acute accent. Thus:

• U+1F71 άGREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA
• U+03AC άGREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS
  • U+03B1 αGREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA plusU+0301 ◌́COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT (shown for explanation only; in practice only the precomposed form is used)

Where a distinction needs to be made (in historic textual analysis, for example), the existence of individualcode points and a suitable distinguishing typeface (computer font) make this possible.

• Panayotakis, Nicolaos M. (1996). "A Watershed in the History of Greek Script: Abolishing the Polytonic". In Macrakis, Michael S. (ed.).Greek Letters: From Tablets to Pixels. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press.ISBN 1-884718-27-2. Panayotakis is critical of the adoption of monotonic, and also provides a useful historical sketch.
• Key, T. Hewitt (1855)."On Greek Accentuation".Transactions of the Philological Society (9). See also:[1].

Wikimedia Commons has media related toGreek diacritics.

General information:

• Accentuation history and tutorial
• Citizens' Movement for the Reintroduction of the Polytonic System, in Greek and English
• How the law to abandon polytonic orthography was passed in the Greek parliament, in Greek
• Greek polytonic to monotonic converter (free online tool)
• Program that converts (correct) written monotonic texts into polytonic texts

Polytonic Greek fonts:

• Greek Font Society public domain polytonic fontsArchived 2008-07-01 at theWayback Machine
• Public domain Greek polytonic unicode fonts
• AthenaArchived 2020-08-01 at theWayback Machine, public domain polytonic Greek font

How-to guides for polytonic keyboard layouts:

• Google Docs guide for Linux Covers installation of layouts, use of dead-keys etc. Updated to 2010.

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