The Greek alphabet

(updated august 4, 2007)

For many years it was assumed that the oldest existing writing would be in Greek. It exists from around 800 years after the beginning of our era. The Greek alphabet originates from the same period. What stand out in this alphabet are the strange characters that are in it. It has 24 characters that people with a technical background will recognize as the characters are widely used, especially in physics.

Below are the characters of the Greek depicted together with their names and you can read about the pronunciation of the particular character.

	àlfa	a
	vita / wita	v
	ghàmma	Between 'g' and 'j'. When the character comes before something that's pronounced like a 'o', 'oe' or 'a' it sounds like a 'g' or a 'h'. It sounds like a 'j' if it comes before a 'i' or 'e'.
	dhèlta	dh (soft), like in 'This', 'There' en 'That'.
	èpsilon	'e', a short 'e'.
	zita	z
	íta	ie, als in 'niet'
	thíta	th (sharp), like the English 'Thick'.
	iòta	ie, als 'íta'.
	kàppa	k. When before a 'i' or 'e' it sounds like 'kj'.
	làmdha	l
	mi	m
	ni	n
	xi	x
	òmikron	o, like in 'kop'.
	pi	p
	ro	r, a rolling 'r'.
	sigma	s
	taf	t
	ípsilon	ie, like 'íta' en 'iòta'.
	fi	f
	chi	soft g, like in the German 'Ich'.
	psi	ps
	omèga	o, like 'òmikron'

Translated by Annemiek, 2007 – 2012 | Privacy policy annemiek@kreta2005.nl