(If you should meet αυι, ευι, ουι or ηυι then the 1st pair will be the diphthong and the ι will be single.)Ī single vowel can carry as many as three diacritics: breathing mark and accent and iota subscript. Watch out! Greek diphthongs (two vowels together) are always treated as a package, so when you have two adjoining vowels (αι, αυ, ει, ευ, οι, ου ηυ & υι), the diacritic will appear on the second vowel, but the h for a rough breathing mark will go before the first vowel in the transliteration. In transliteration only the "rough breathing" is recorded. Unless otherwise specified, in transcription all diacritics in Greek text are reproduced. Only with α (alpha a), η (eta ê), ω (omega ô) Rare: υ (upsilon u) or ι (iota i) following another vowel Initial vowel or diphthong, and most ρ (rho, r).
In these examples you can see other common differences: in printed Greek fonts, capital letters tend to have serifs, while lower-case letters rarely do and while lower-case letters are commonly mildly italic, capitals are usually bolt upright.ĭiacritical marks (diacritics) are anything attached to the “main” letter, like an accent é, tilde ñ or cedilla ç. If they're all the same, assume it is lower-case.įor all three end-of-alphabet double letters-phi, chi and psi-the main difference between the capital and lower-case letter is its position on the line: above or below. Some fonts have an unusually big lower-case phi that looks like a capital letter. In others, it looks just like a rounder, fatter lower-case theta. In some fonts, capital theta has a free-floating middle bar. You can almost always tell from the context if it's supposed to be Greek.Ī few others look like their lower-case forms: Notice how many of the capital letters look just like the equivalent Roman letter: (For those who can recognise diphthongs: use "u" in diphthongs, "y" elsewhere.) This isn't required, though you can use u everywhere if you want, but check with the Project Manager to make sure it's done consistently throughout the project. Generally, if upsilon follows another vowel, use "u". The letter υ (upsilon) can be transliterated as either u or y. The letter γ (gamma) is usually transliterated as g, but n is used instead when it occurs before certain letters: The two letters γ (gamma) and υ (upsilon) may be transliterated different ways, depending on the context.
If you come across the latter form at the beginning or in the middle of a word, refer to the double letters section below. The form ς is used only at the end of a word. The form σ is used only non-finally (beginning or middle of a word). If you find a letter that doesn't look like any of the above, see below under variant forms and ligatures. And you can tell apart capital/lower-case pairs like Oo and Ss by their size. In English, you would never confuse "l" (ell) with "j" (jay), no matter how flyspecky or damaged they are, because one goes up and the other one goes down. The position of a letter is just as important as its shape. The last column shows the letters inline with alpha. Just like the Roman alphabet, Greek letters may go either above or below the line.
These are the usual forms of the Greek letters. 3.2 Transliteration markup around punctuation.1.2 Letters with Multiple Transliterations.