Greek alphabet Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Diacritics === {{Main|Greek diacritics}} {{Multiple image | image1 = Greek diacritic dipthong.svg | image2 = Greek diacritic non-diphthong.svg | total_width = 270 | footer = The acute accent in ''aulós'' {{IPA-el|avˈlos|}} ('flute') distinguishes the word from its [[homograph]] ''áulos'' {{IPA-el|ˈailos|}} ('immaterial'). The smooth breathing marks the absence of an initial /h/. }} In the [[polytonic orthography]] traditionally used for ancient Greek and [[katharevousa]], the stressed vowel of each word carries one of three accent marks: either the [[acute accent]] ({{Big|{{lang|grc|ά}}}}), the [[grave accent]] ({{Big|{{lang|grc|ὰ}}}}), or the [[circumflex accent]] ({{Big|{{lang|grc|α̃}}}} or {{big|{{lang|grc|α̑}}}}). These signs were originally designed to mark different forms of the phonological [[pitch accent]] in Ancient Greek. By the time their use became conventional and obligatory in Greek writing, in late antiquity, pitch accent was evolving into a single [[Stress (linguistics)|stress accent]], and thus the three signs have not corresponded to a phonological distinction in actual speech ever since. In addition to the accent marks, every word-initial vowel must carry either of two so-called "breathing marks": the [[Spiritus asper|rough breathing]] ({{Big|{{lang|grc|ἁ}}}}), marking an {{IPA|/h/}} sound at the beginning of a word, or the [[Spiritus lenis|smooth breathing]] ({{Big|{{lang|grc|ἀ}}}}), marking its absence. The letter rho (ρ), although not a vowel, also carries rough breathing in a word-initial position. If a rho was geminated within a word, the first {{lang|el|ρ}} always had the smooth breathing and the second the rough breathing (ῤῥ) leading to the transliteration rrh. The vowel letters {{angbr|{{lang|el|α, η, ω}}}} carry an additional diacritic in certain words, the so-called [[iota subscript]], which has the shape of a small vertical stroke or a miniature {{angbr|{{lang|el|ι}}}} below the letter. This iota represents the former offglide of what were originally long diphthongs, {{angbr|{{lang|el|ᾱι, ηι, ωι}}}} (i.e. {{IPA|/aːi, ɛːi, ɔːi/}}), which became monophthongized during antiquity. [[File:Greek diacritic non-diphthong capitals.svg|thumb|175x175px|Use of diaeresis in the word ''áulos'' indicating a [[vowel hiatus]]. The acute accent is absent in the upper case.]] Another diacritic used in Greek is the [[Double dot (diacritic)|diaeresis]] ({{big|{{lang|grc|¨}}}}), indicating a [[Hiatus (linguistics)|hiatus]]. This system of diacritics was first developed by the scholar [[Aristophanes of Byzantium]] ({{circa}} 257 – {{circa}} 185/180 BC), who worked at the [[Musaeum]] in Alexandria during the third century BC.{{sfn|Dickey|2007|pages=92–93}} Aristophanes of Byzantium also was the first to divide poems into lines, rather than writing them like prose, and also introduced a series of signs for [[textual criticism]].{{sfn|Dickey|2007|page=93}} In 1982, a new, simplified orthography, known as "monotonic", was adopted for official use in Modern Greek by the Greek state. It uses only a single accent mark, the acute (also known in this context as ''tonos'', i.e. simply "accent"), marking the stressed syllable of polysyllabic words, and occasionally the diaeresis to distinguish diphthongal from digraph readings in pairs of vowel letters, making this monotonic system very similar to the accent mark system used in [[Spanish language|Spanish]]. The polytonic system is still conventionally used for writing Ancient Greek, while in some book printing and generally in the usage of conservative writers it can still also be found in use for Modern Greek. Although it is not a diacritic, the [[comma]] has a similar function as a [[silent letter]] in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing {{wikt-lang|el|ό,τι}} (''ó,ti'', "whatever") from {{wikt-lang|el|ότι}} (''óti'', "that").<ref name=nicky>Nicolas, Nick. "[http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120806003722/http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/punctuation.html |date=2012-08-06 }}". 2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page