Polytonic Greek orthography is the standard way of writing ancient Greek and Kathareuousa, and a deprecated way of writing Dhimotiki, the standard form of the modern Greek language.

Polytonic Greek utilizes a set of five diacritic marks:

• The accents (tónoi, τόνοι):
  • Okseía (οξεία), the acute accent, written over a stressed vowel of a word,
  • Bareía (βαρεία), the grave accent, written over a stressed vowel of a word,
  • Perispoméni (περισπωμένη), originally a circumflex, but now written as a tilde, macron, or inverted breve.
• The spirits:
  • Psilí (ψιλή), or smooth breathing (spiritus lenis), written over the first letter of some of the words starting with a vowel,
  • Daseía (δασεία), or rough breathing (spiritus asper), written over the first letter of the words starting with a vowel that don't take a psilí, always if this letter is upsilon, and words starting with the consonant rho (ρ).

In modern Greek, the pronunciation of okseía, bareía and perispoméni is identical, whereas psilí and daseía are voiceless. This has led to the creation of simpler mode of writing which has eventually become the standard in modern Greek, Monotonic, which only uses the okseía.

History

The earliest written Greek consists of the Linear B tablets, mainly from Knossos on Crete and Mycenae in the Peloponnese, but also from a few other scattered sites in southern Greece. Linear B was a syllabary, not an alphabet, and possessed neither accents nor any other diacritics.

Sample Greek text

The Lord's Prayer in Koine:

Polytonic

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·
τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·
καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφελήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ρῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
ἀμήν.

Monotonic

Πάτερ ημών ο εν τοις ουρανοίς αγιασθήτω το όνομά σου·
ελθέτω η βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω το θέλημά σου, ως εν ουρανώ κι επί της γης·
τον άρτον ημών τον επιούσιον δος ημίν σήμερον·
και άφες ημίν τα οφειλήματα ημών, ως και ημείς αφίεμεν τοις οφειλέταις ημών·
και μη εισενέγκης ημάς εις πειρασμόν, αλλά ρύσαι ημάς από του πονηρού.
αμήν.

External links

• Athena (http://www.ecclesia.gr/greek/help.htm#english), public domain polytonic greek font
• Gentium — a typeface for the nations (http://www.sil.org/~gaultney/gentium/), a freely available font including polytonic Greek support