These are the rules concerning transliteration inAncient Greek entries.

This page is an extension ofWiktionary:Ancient Greek entry guidelines. See alsoCategory:Ancient Greek IPA templates. There is also a pageModern Greek romanization.

The prescribed pronunciation systems here reflect the main prestige dialects during the three ancient Greek development periods.

• Classical Greek pronunciation reflects the conservative standard of theAttic-speaking regions ofAttica, the northernCyclades,Euboea andChalcidice, and their colonies.
• Koine Greek pronunciation reflects the majority mixed dialect ofAlexander's empire, especially that ofAlexandria, the principal philosophical and literary center of theHellenistic Greeks, and where Judeo-Christian scripture was translated into Greek.
• Byzantine Greek pronunciation reflects the habits ofConstantinople and its close transitional dialects. Though it spanned almost all ofLate Antiquity, it also spanned well into the Middle Ages until the 15th century (approximately 1200 years), as the Byzantine Roman world largely escaped the Dark Ages.
• Contemporary Greek pronunciation reflects how people in modern Greece and Cyprus pronounce classical words today. The standard is based on the polished speech register of Demotic Greek, including additional polished Cypriot articulations (in parentheses) where these do not exist in Athens.

This table usesευ as an example, but the same principles apply toαυ andηυ, withα andη instead ofε.

Even today, most words of learned Ancient Greek origin haveι pronounced as[i], always a full vowel in its own syllable. However, whereι isunderstood to have come from[j], a[j]-derived pronunciation may reasonably apply.[j] does not enter the spoken language until the Byzantine period, and some words (such asἸούλιος(Ioúlios)) donot today have retroactive[j] pronunciations. But when[j] does contextually apply, this is how.

• A rough breathing mark (dasy pneuma) is designated by an h at the front of the word (both in IPA and Romanization). A smooth breathing mark (psilon pneuma) requires no notation. In Koine IPA, the rough breathing mark is marked as[(h)] because it's already a mostly dead phoneme. In Byzantine IPA onward, it is totally gone. When the rough breathing mark is on vowels or diphthongs, they should be preceded withh in romanization. Overρ, the consonant is romanizedrh. The mark is always on (or implied to be on) word-initialΡ ρ Υ υ Υι υι, which are always romanizedRh rh Hu hu Hui hui.ρρ/ῤῥ is always romanizedrrh.
• Iota subscripts are romanized, but not pronounced for Koine. In Classical pronunciation an iota subscript is designated by a /j/ following the vowel.
• A diaeresis should be noted in a Romanization with the umlaut set found in the Latin/Roman script set (at the bottom of the editing window).
• In Classical IPA, acute accent is noted by   ́   on vowel, circumflex with    ̂  . In Koine, both are represented with   ˈ   at the beginning of the corresponding syllable.
• Short vowels (ᾰ,ῐ,ῠ) are denoted in the displayed forms of words, as well as romanizations, with a breve.
• Long vowels (ᾱ,ῑ,ῡ) are denoted in the displayed forms of words, as well as romanizations, with a macron. The macron is omitted in combination with a circumflex accent, as a circumflex accent is already implicitly long.
• Macrons should be designated in IPA by the long vowel symbolː.

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