Talk:Greek alphabet

message: Some recent edits to the lead [] have changed the description of the history of the uppercase/lowercase distinction, from saying that it developed in the modern era, to saying that it developed "around the third or fourth century". I don't think this is correct. If editors were thinking of the development of minuscule letter forms, those arose much later, in the 9th century or thereabouts. If they were thinking of the use of cursive letter forms that look partly similar to minuscules, those (if I'm not quite mistaken) are even older than the third and fourth century. But neither the medieval minuscule script nor the ancient cursive constitute what that sentence was talking about, a letter case distinction. "Minuscule" and "lower case" are not the same thing. A case distinction exists only when minuscule and majuscule letter forms are used in a functionally complementary way, side by side with each other in the same texts, and the distinction is employed systematically as an orthographical device. What you find in medieval writing is different: you either have texts written entirely in minuscule, or you have a few majuscule letters mixed in for decorative purposes, in titles or marginal initials. But then, these majuscule elements really stand outside the main text; their use is a stylistic decoration but not an orthographical device. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I'm aware, an orthographic case distinction really developed in Greek only after the Renaissance. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits about case distinction 

message: In Greece there is also an unofficial letter which is in widespread handwritten usage, it is a letter combining the letters "O" and "U" for the "ou" diphthong, and this letter is usually written in all-capital words. It looks like an omicron ("Ο") with an ypsilon ("Υ") above it. Can we find sources for this Greek letter? Cogiati (talk) 12:51, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be covered under Greek ligatures. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:00, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure you do not mean this letter (Ȣ, ȣ)? It is not Greek, but rather Latin: a combination of the Latin letters "O" and "U" (not the Greek "Ο" and "Υ"). — |J~Pæst|  23:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, it does exist in Greek, and the Latin usage was inspired by it. There's a bit about its present-day status here . Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:42, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combined letter OU missing 

message: The Greek alphabet consists of three sets of nine letters representing the numbers 1-9, 10-90, and 100-900. So, 27 letters all together (3 X 9 = 27).
As such, omega is not the last letter of the Greek alphabet because it represents the number 800.
Other letters frequently omitted are digamma/ F = (6) and koppa (similar to Q) = 90.
I think Wikipedia should post the 27 letters of the Greek alphabet and their numeric equivalents. (A numeric equivalency chart is available at www.GreekAlphabeta.com) GreekAlphabeta (talk) 22:02, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhm, no. What you have here is not the Greek alphabet, but the Greek numeral system. Which is based on the Greek alphabet (i.e. some archaic versions of it), but isn't the alphabet proper. As our article rightly says, and will continue to say based on all reliable sources, the alphabet proper in its classical form has 24 letters. Digamma, Koppa and Sampi are extra-alphabetic signs ("episema"), which are not part of the alphabet itself. The numeral system is of course also treated in this article, quite appropriately, in its own section (Greek alphabet#Use as numerals). Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  24 or 27 letters 

message: Do you think that I should add a column alongside the names of the letters showing IPA pronunciation of the names (Romanized)? 77.127.225.235 (talk) 22:04, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That would again open up the old can of worms: which pronunciation? The modern English pronunciation, a reconstructed classical Greek pronunciation, or the modern Greek one? Or all of them together? If you are referring to the summary table in the intro section, then no, we should not overburden it with such things. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:22, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would think that the modern English should take priority, as that is the way an English speaker would communicate the letter intended. If you feel that it doesn't belong in the main table (adjacent to the "name" column, I could make a separate table and incorporate all three. Where would you put it? (Basically, one who wants to get a quick feel for the Greek alphabet has to run around to each letter's article and try to memorize the pronunciation then go back to the main list, repeat.) אפונה (talk) 06:53, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

text: I just found a page devoted to pronunciations, and I've updated all the IPAs to IPAc-en. Perhaps a link could be added to the page (English pronunciation of Greek letters) or the table could be incorporated into this article. אפונה (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Letter name pronunciation 

message: I'm afraid I disagree with the recent edit by  , introducing the distinction of Greek as a true "alphabet" as opposed to the Phoenician "abjad" in the intro. As far as I am aware, the terminology that wants to restrict the term "alphabet" to those of the Greek (consonant + vowels) type and strictly distinguishes the latter from "abjads" is not a commonly employed one in the literature. While certainly influential, it is essentially just a personal invention of one author, Peter Daniels (in The World's Writing Systems). Most other authors continue to call scripts of the Phoenician type "alphabets" as a matter of course. This terminology should therefore not be allowed to monopolize our treatment like this. The distinction is already present in the article, properly contextualized and hedged, in the "history" section ("According to a definition used by some modern authors, this feature makes Greek the first "alphabet" in the narrow sense,] as distinguished from the purely consonantal alphabets of the Semitic type, which according to this terminology are called "abjads".) That's about as much coverage as we should give it here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What does it mean to represent vowels and consonants equally? This should be put in simpler terms, e.g. the first alphabet with distinct letters for vowels. Also, why was the overview table pushed below the ToC? 213.7.56.181 (talk) 15:26, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabet vs. abjad issue 

message: In the table with the heading "Letters" the Greek letter 'M' is named in English as 'mu'. This is incorrect as the second letter 'u' is actually pronounced 'i' in Greek, as the name of the Greek letter 'u' is pronounced 'ipsilon'. Hence the Greek letter 'Y' or 'u' in the table is incorrectly named as 'upsilon'. Think of the letter as an English Y as used in the words tally, rally, funny or sunny, rather than the English letter 'U'. This can be confusing because the upper case ipsilon 'Y' and the lower case ipsilon 'u' represent different sounds in the English language. This also applies to the Greek letter 'N' or 'v'. The correct pronunciation of these letters is therefore 'Mi' and 'Ni' rather than 'Mu' and 'Nu'. Most monosyllabic Greek letters are pronounced with a short 'i' sound such as in the word 'Si', the Italian or Spanish word for 'Yes'. For example: 'M' (Mi), 'N' (Ni), 'Ξ' (Xi) or (Ksi), 'Π' (Pi), 'Φ' (Phi), 'Χ' (Chi) and 'Ψ' (Psi). The exceptions are 'P' (Rho) or (Ro) and 'T', which brings me to my next point. The English pronunciation of the Greek letter 'T' in the table is written as 'Tau'. This is incorrect as the Greek ipsilon (u) is also used to make other sounds when combined with other letters. For example, when it is preceded by an 'o' as in 'ou' it represents the short sound 'oo' as in book, look and took. Greek examples are φρouto, pronounced 'frooto' (fruit) and τou, pronounced 'tu' (his). When preceded by an 'a', as is the case here 'au', the sound it represents is 'aph' or 'af' as in the words 'tough', 'enough' and 'gruff'. Greek examples include 'aυτo', pronounced 'afto' (that) or 'aυτoκιvιτo', pronounsed 'aftokinito' (automobile). Hence the Greek letter 'T' or 'τ' in the table should be pronounced 'taf', exactly like the English word 'tough' not 'tau'. The confusion probably lies in the fact that there are three lettters that make the 'i' sound in the Greek alphabet: 'Η' or 'η', 'Ι' or 'ι' and 'Y' or 'u'. Combinations of 'oι' and 'ει' also make the 'i' sound (confusing even for a Greek, trust me). The pronunciations are correctly labelled in the tables in the section below titled "Letter names" so I thought the inconsistency could be rectified to more accurately reflect the Modern Greek pronunciations. Cheers.
Dorothy Dixer (talk) 23:24, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: . These are the names of the letters in English. The letters' pronunciation in Modern Greek is not relevant. Alakzi (talk) 23:34, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 7 February 2015 

message: When I saw that the article claimed that chi represented a velar fricative in IPA, I changed it to say that it represented a uvular one. My edit was promptly reverted. As per Voiceless velar fricative and Voiceless uvular fricative, I believe that the Latin letter x represents a velar fricative, and the Greek letter chi represents a uvular one, and that my edit was correct, unless there is something major that I'm missing. If there is something I'm missing, please mention it here, but for the time being I'm going to change it back. Thanks. 44Dume (talk) 18:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: You were quite right, of course: in IPA, "χ" is uvular, "x" is velar. Thanks for spotting that error in the article. Maybe the editor who reverted you misread your diff and missed its context, thinking that you were trying to say that the sound denoted by the letter chi in Greek was uvular rather than velar. Probably just a misunderstanding. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is exactly what happened. Apologies. Alakzi (talk) 18:48, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA Usage 

message: Does anyone have the time and knowledge to write something about it?
Aristarchus of Samothrace and other ancient greek Philologists and their textcritical signs.
I have found some sources, see:
Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship, 2015 (2 Vols.) pp. 549-562
and: The ambiguity of signs: critical σημεῖα from Zenodotus to Origenes. Author, Francesca Schironi  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Informationskampagne (talk • contribs) 22:45, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Textcritical signs of Aristarchus of Samothrace and other ancient greek writers and Philologists 

message: I am not an expert at all, and so I hesitate just changing things, but I was trying to translate words and could not find the symbol ϑ on this page in the table. Apparently it is a variation of θ; 'theta', see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta.  
Could it be added into the table or perhaps even as a footnote? (Like the two forms of Sigma). I leave the decision to the editors most active on this page. It will help people (beginners, like me) just trying to decipher symbols. Thank you! Jelle1975 (talk) 06:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It's covered in the Greek alphabet#Glyph variants section. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:39, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor request concerning ϑ / θ 

message: A simple copy-edit: In the last paragraph of the Greek alphabet#Diacritics section, the text "Although it is not a diacritic the Comma has" should be replaced with "Although it is not a diacritic, the comma has".  That is, insert a comma and down-case Comma.  Thank you!71.41.210.146 (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: and I also rearranged the wording after it - Arjayay (talk) 17:52, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request: "Comma" should not be capitalized 

message: Shouldn't an article with this title start with the Greek alphabet? Keith-264 (talk) 14:40, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it does, doesn't it? There is an overview table right at the top of the first section. Although I have to say, I personally liked it better at an earlier stage when that table was still in the intro paragraph, above the table of contents, and was also a bit leaner . Is that more in line with what you would have expected? This was the way it was until 2015, then somebody felt the table should be in a section of its own, and people kept adding more details to it too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek alphabet 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Isn't the table in the digraphs section missing a few of the digraphs/combinations? The preceding text mentions several that are not included in the table (e.g. "there is also ⟨ου⟩, pronounced /u/"). Mortenpi (talk) 01:24, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing digraphs? 

message: In the section of Use as Numerals, there should be a reference to isopsephy. It's highly important to the entire structure of the ancient to modern Greek language. Isopsephy influenced Hebrew Gematria, Arabic Abjad numerals, and simple English Gematria. 73.204.120.223 (talk) 14:09, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isopsephy 

message: The table has 5 notes at the bottom; one is about omega. Is a similar statement true about eta?? (For clarification, this question is about the statement that eta is introduced to English speakers as the sound of ay in hay.) Georgia guy (talk) 02:13, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: In classical Attic Greek, the letter eta was pronounced as a long epsilon, meaning it made the same sound as epsilon, but was held for roughly twice as long. An excellent source if you are looking for further information about how Classical Attic Greek was pronounced is the book Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek: Third Edition by W. Sydney Allen, which talks about the pronunciation of the letter eta on pages sixty-nine through seventy-five. –Katolophyromai (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: To clarify what I'm saying, read the note under the table that talks about omega. I understand what you're saying correctly, and what I'm asking for is a similar note about eta. That is, one that says that eta is introduced to English speakers as the sound of ay in hay. Georgia guy (talk) 20:49, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to add the note by putting the same note on eta, but it was tough. The note says:
The letter omega ⟨ω⟩ is normally taught to English speakers as [oʊ], the long o as in English go, in order to more clearly distinguish it from omicron ⟨ο⟩.[22][15] This is not the sound it actually made in classical Attic Greek.[22][15]
I was trying to add it to eta by changing it to:
The letters eta and omega ⟨ω⟩ are normally taught to English speakers as [ei] and [oʊ], the long a o as in English hay and go, in order to more clearly distinguish it from epsilon and omicron ⟨ο⟩.[22][15] These are not the sounds it actually made in classical Attic Greek.[22][15] Georgia guy (talk) 14:56, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

text: But is that statement true? I'm not convinced it's covered by the citations given even for omega, less so for eta. Of the two footnotes, #22 (Mastronarde) clearly describes and advocates proper half-open, non-diphthongal pronunciations for both letters, and merely notes that "you will also hear it pronounced like English long o". That doesn't really support the claim that it is "normally" taught like that. For eta it makes no such allowance at all. What does the other of the two cited works say? I don't have access to it. What makes you think it would support an analogous statement for eta, if the editors who first introduced it here cited it only about omega? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:08, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Check this article's history to see who put the omega note at the bottom of the table. Georgia guy (talk) 19:19, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  I know who added it. But you didn't answer my question. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:29, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: My experience with differences between the table and how the alphabet is normally taught to anglophones. Georgia guy (talk) 19:56, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

text:  The second source cited to support this statement, the one I assume you are most likely referring to (i.e. "Keller & Russell 2012"), lists the pronunciation for omega as "as the aw of saw or as the o of hope," but has a footnote which states, "The alternate pronunciation given for the vowel omega does not represent the sound of original Attic Greek but is a common substitute used by English speakers because it makes a clearer distinction between the sounds of omicron and omega." –Katolophyromai (talk) 20:56, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: And I'm quite sure eta has properties that parallel what you wrote about omega, Katolophyromai. (Read what I wrote above.) Georgia guy (talk) 21:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  About the note on omega 

message: This article gives the vowel sound in "pet" as an approximation for epsilon.  However, the article for that vowel sound gives "may" as the example for most dialects, except for Australian, the example for the latter being "bed".  The article for Open-mid front unrounded vowel, which this article gives as the ancient value for eta, has "bed" as the example for General American, Received Pronunciation, Northern English, and Scottish.  The way I pronounce the words (I think my dialect is General American), "pet" and "bed" have the same vowel.  Therefore I think that it should be made more explicit which specific dialect the English examples in the "Approximate western European equivalent" column are from. ZFT (talk) 22:59, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The way I see it, this confusion only goes to demonstrate why it was never a good idea to overload that table with this kind of phonetic information to begin with. To answer your question: The Greek "e" in Modern Greek is not really a close-mid vowel, but just "mid" or even open-mid; it is conventionally transcribed with the simpler phonetic symbol "e" in a broad transcription because there is no other e-like sound to contrast it with. The English "pet"/"bed" vowel is a fairly good approximation, because it too can vary within much the same range, from mid to open-mid. In Ancient Greek, epsilon may have been distinctively close-mid, contrasting with open-mid eta; a close-mid but short "e" sound doesn't really have a good equivalent in most English accents, although Australian "bed" might work. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:10, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound values of epsilon and eta 

message: It is more harmful than helpful. The number of people who speak western European languages (esp. English) outside western Europe (Eg. India, Pakistan, Phillipines) far exceeds the population of western Europeans. They are left wondering : "WTF are they talking about? Is this how Ancient Greek is supposed to be spoken? Or was I wrong about how that western European/ English word is pronounced all along??" Example: Δ δ = d as in English delete. That's retroflex here in India, not alveolar. The IPA clears it up. Similarly with Θ θ = "t as in English top". This table column might help some Anglo Saxons, but it frustrates and confuses LOT more people. विश्वासो वासुकेयः (talk) 03:19, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please remove the "Approximate western European equivalent" column for Ancient Greek 

message: The example of ό,τι is the only one that exists, as far as I'm concerned, and in this instance it is not referred to as a comma, rather a diastolē/diastoli (in Greek διαστολή) which is another name for the comma in Mathematics as well. Its invention and use is solely modern, as it is only seen in the word ό,τι , which didn't exist prior to Demotic/Modern Standard Greek. It is a modern substitute for the longer word οτιδήποτε, which is quite older, and means "whatever". Ό,τι has only moderly appeared, and the need to make a distinction between it and ότι (that, as used in the reported speech, not an indicative pronoun) which was already in use. In the spoken language, the two are very easy to differentiate, as they are used in completely different grammatical situations. So, it should be described as diastoli, not a comma. LightningLighting (talk) 12:49, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diacritics: Comma in words 

message: The lower-case tau is not represented throughout the article in the way it is usually seen as in the Greekalphabet.svg, shown in the infobox, which is the way users of Greek symbols are accustomed to read it. I attempted a couple of fixes, but none worked. Is there any experienced user who knows how to fix this?Gciriani (talk) 13:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This is just a matter of font differences, so I'm not sure there's really anything to fix. By default, we use the same standard sans-serif text fonts for displaying Greek as for displaying Latin text. The exact shape of the letters shown will depend on your system, but most systems will have these simple letter shapes, where, for instance, lower-case "τ" will have a straiɡht stem, without the curvy end you probably expected. These are optimized for screen readability and are what native Greek readers would expect in reading modern Greek texts online. The difference between these shapes is really no more significant in Greek than the difference between serif and sans-serif font shapes is in Latin. If you prefer a different font, you could play around with your personal CSS style settings, but I don't think we'd want to change the default reading experience for all readers. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:34, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lower-case tau representation 

message: May I suggest to use a sound file for each letter? rather than describing it how to pronounce. Jackzhp (talk) 12:27, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: For the pronunciation

message: What Mastronarde writes about the pronunciation of Y in Ancient Greek is nonsense since u in French lune and ruse have the same length. What he writes about German equivalents is misleading since the long and short y in German differ in pronunciation, not only in length. --Espoo (talk) 05:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, our article on French phonology states that French vowels tend to be pronounced longer when followed by a voiced fricative, so ruse might really have a longer vowel than lune, even if it's not a phonemic distinction. It's true that the tense/lax pairs of languages like English and German are probably a poor analogy. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:53, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Y

message: The article says that the letter omicron is pronounced like the letter oh in the German word ohne. I know very little German, but isn't ohne pronounced with a long initial vowel, /ˈoːnə/? Imerologul Valah (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 21:18, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Omicron like German ''ohne''?