List of Greek letters

This is a list of letters of the Greek alphabet. The definition of a Greek letter for this list is a character encoded in the Unicode standard that has a script property of "Greek" and the general category of "Letter". An overview of the distribution of Greek letters is given in Greek script in Unicode.

Letters contained in the modern Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet
ΑαΒβΓγΔδΕεΖζΗηΘθΙιΚκΛλΜμΝνΞξΟοΠπΡρΣσςΤτΥυΦφΧχΨψΩω

Extensions

Letter Name Notes
ͰͱHetaArchaic letter for voiceless glottal fricative[1]
ͲͳArchaic SampiArchaic sibilant letter[2]
ϜϝDigammaArchaic letter for /w/
ͶͷTsanPamphylian letter for /w/; alleged sibilant in Arcado-Cypriot[2]
ϺϻSanArchaic letter for /s/[3]
ϷϸShoBactrian letter for /ʃ/[4]
ϘϙArchaic KoppaLetter for /k/ before Ο, Υ, and Ω
ϚϛStigmaArchaic ligature for στ, retained in iconography[5]
ͿϳYotGreek linguistics[6] letter for /j/
ϏϗKaiLigature abbreviating the word kai[7]

Letters with diacritics

The letters with diacritics below are those which do not denote the typical phonemes described with the standard Greek diacritics (archaic or otherwise).

Letter Name Notes
Ζ̌ζ̌Zeta with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek[8] representing /ʒ/
Κ̌κ̌Kappa with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek representing /c/ and /t͡ʃ/[8]
Λ̌λ̌Lambda with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek representing /ʎ/[8]
Ν̌ν̌Nu with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek representing /ɲ/[8]
Ξ̌ξ̌Xi with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek[8] representing /kʃ/
Π̌π̌Pi with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek representing /pʲ/[8]
ῤRho with smooth breathingArchaic letter denoting /r/[9]
ῬῥRho with rough breathingArchaic letter denoting /r̥/[9]
Σ̌σ̌ς̌Sigma with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek[8] representing /ʃ/
Τ̌τ̌Tau with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek representing /c/[8]
Ψ̌ψ̌Psi with caronNonstandard letter for Cypriot Greek[8] representing /pʃ/

Other characters

Other Greek characters are omitted from the tables above:

  • Subscript modifier letters β, γ, ρ, φ, and χ: ᵦ ᵧ ᵨ ᵩ ᵪ
  • Superscript modifier letters β, γ, δ, φ, and χ: ᵝ ᵞ ᵟ ᵠ ᵡ
  • Small capitals Γ, Λ, Π, Ρ, Ψ, and Ω: ᴦ ᴧ ᴨ ᴩ ᴪ ꭥ
  • Glyph variants for β, ε, Θ, θ, κ, ρ, Σ, σ/ς, π, Υ, Ύ, Ϋ, φ: ϐ ϵ ϴ ϑ ϰ ϱ Ϲ ϲ ϖ ϒ ϓ ϔ ϕ[10]
  • OU ligature which is used in Greek but encoded as a Latin letter: Ȣȣ[5]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Nicholas, Nick (2005-01-01). "Proposal to add Greek Letter Lowercase Heta and Greek Letter Capital Heta to the UCS" (PDF).
  2. 1 2 Nicholas, Nick (2005-01-01). "Proposal to add Greek epigraphical letters to the UCS" (PDF).
  3. ↑ "Proposal to encode the Greek Capital Letter San and Greek Small Letter San in the UCS" (PDF). 2002-11-07.
  4. ↑ Everson, Michael (2002-01-30). "Proposal to add two Greek letters for Bactrian to the UCS" (PDF).
  5. 1 2 Nicholas, Nick (2005-05-23). "Other Ligatures".
  6. ↑ Nick Nicholas, "Yot" Deprecated link archived 2012-08-05 at archive.today
  7. ↑ Nicholas, Nick (2005-04-09). "Ligatures".
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Themistocleous, Charalambos; Katsoyannou, Marianna; Armosti, Spyros; Christodoulou, Kyriaki. "Cypriot Greek Lexicography: A Reverse Dictionary of Cypriot Greek" (PDF).
  9. 1 2 Nicholas, Nick (2003-05-26). "Greek & Greek Extended".
  10. ↑ Thompson, Edward M. (1911). An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography. Oxford: Clarendon. pp. 186–194.

See also