Greek alphabet

The Greek language is written in the Greek alphabet, developed in classical times (ca 9th century B.C.) and passed down to the present. It is the world's oldest alphabet in use today. In ancient Greece its letters were also used to represent numbers, called Greek numerals, analogous to Roman numerals. Besides writing modern Greek, today its letters are used as mathematical symbols, as names of stars and fraternities and sororities, and for other purposes, such as names of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, should the given name list be used up (although as of October, 2005 this has never happened).

Main table

The Greek letters and their derivations are as follows (pronunciations transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet):

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(1): Letter removed from the alphabet in early times, before the period that is now called "classical". Only majuscules were written; the minuscule forms are a medieval development of the uncial script.

Related Topics:
Majuscule - Minuscule - Medieval - Uncial

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(2): Archaic pronunciations (before the classical period) are shown between parentheses.

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(3): For details and different transliteration systems see Transliteration of Greek into English.

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