Example of polytonic text from a Byzantine manuscript, of 1020 AD

The polytonic orthography of Greek uses a variety of diacritics (πολύ = many + τόνος = accent) to represent aspects of Ancient Greek pronunciation. It was the standard orthography for all varieties of Greek from Hellenistic times until 1982, although the distinctions it represented had disappeared from the spoken language early in the Christian era. In 1982, the Greek Parliament adopted the monotonic orthography. Polytonic is still sometimes used by people who consider monotonic an unfortunate break with tradition. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... In the Greek alphabet, vowels can carry diacritics, namely accents and breathings. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 407 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1576 × 2323 pixel, file size: 280 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Polytonic orthography ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 407 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1576 × 2323 pixel, file size: 280 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Polytonic orthography ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Monotonic orthography is the simplified way for spelling modern Greek introduced in 1982. ...

Description

Polytonic Greek utilizes a set of diacritics on certain letters, illustrated below using the letter α:

• the accents (tónoi, τόνοι), on the vowel of the accented syllable of a word and indicating different tone patterns in Ancient Greek:
  • ά Oxeía (ὀξεῖα), the acute accent
  • ὰ Bareía (βαρεῖα), the grave accent
  • ᾶ Perispōménē (περισπωμένη), the circumflex, sometimes printed in the form of a tilde, macron, or inverted breve.
• the breathings, written on the first syllable of a word starting with a vowel:
  • ἁ Daseía (δασεῖα), or rough breathing (spiritus asper), indicating an [h] in Ancient Greek. Also used on words starting with rho (ρ) transliterated as rh.
  • ἀ Psilé (ψιλή), or smooth breathing (spiritus lenis), indicating the absence of an [h].
• ᾳ the iota subscript (ὑπογεγραμμένη) under certain vowels, sometimes written adjacent to capitals instead (in which case it is called an iota adscript προσγεγραμμένη).

The letters iota and upsilon also take a diaeresis (διαλυτικά) to show that a pair of vowels is pronounced separately, rather than together: compare Modern Greek παϊδάκια [paiðak^ja] 'lamb chops' and παιδάκια [peðak^ja] 'little children'. The dieresis can be combined with acute, grave and circumflex but never with breathings (since the letter with diaeresis cannot be the first vowel of the word). Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. ... The acute accent (  ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ... The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ... The circumflex ( ˆ ) (often called a caret, a hat or an uppen) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Dutch, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, Afrikaans and other languages, and formerly in Turkish [citation needed]. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus (bent... A tilde. ... A macron, from Greek (makros) meaning large, is a diacritic ¯ placed over a vowel originally to indicate that the vowel is long. ... A breve (Latin brevis short, brief) is a diacritical mark Ë˜, shaped like a little round cup, designed to indicate a short vowel, as opposed to the macron Â¯ which indicates long vowels. ... The spiritus asper (rough breathing) or dasy pneuma (Greek: dasu, δασύ) is a diacritical mark used in Greek. ... Rho (upper case Ρ, lower case ρ) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... The spiritus lenis (soft breathing) or psilon pneuma (Greek: psilón, ψιλόν) is a diacritical mark used in Ancient Greek. ... Iota subscript (Greek ) in Greek polytonic orthography is a way of writing the letter iota as a small vertical stroke beneath a vowel. ... Iota adscript (Greek ) in Greek polytonic orthography a term for the iota when written separately from the long vowel preceding it in diphthongs, as opposed to combining it as a small vertical stroke beneath the vowel, known as the iota subscript (). The iota subscript was created when the iota was... Look up Ι, ι in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... The umlaut mark (or simply umlaut) and the trema or diaeresis mark (or simply diaeresis) are two diacritics consisting of a pair of dots placed over a letter. ...

All of these diacritics are important in Classical Greek (and the breathings in particular are relevant to the etymology of words in other languages), but except for the diaeresis none have any significance in the modern language: there is no difference in pronunciation between words which formerly had smooth and rough breathings, and the pitch accent has been replaced with a stress accent. (Note that the transliteration of the names of the diacritics into the Roman alphabet varies, chiefly depending on whether they are considered words from Classical or Modern Greek.) Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ... In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

History

The rough and smooth breathings were introduced in classical times in order to represent the presence or absence of [h] in Attic Greek, which had adopted a form of the alphabet in which the H sign was no longer available for this purpose as it had been used (as Eta) for the long e. Aristophanes of Byzantium introduced the various accent markings during the Hellenistic period for educational purposes. The majuscule system written entirely in capital letters was used until the 8th century, when the miniscule polytonic was widely adopted. Look up Η, η in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Aristophanes of Byzantium, Gr. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Majuscules or capital letters (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ...

In the later development of the language, the ancient tones were replaced by a stress accent making the differences among accents superfluous, and the [h] sound became silent. Some textbooks of Ancient Greek for foreigners have retained the breathings, but dropped all the accents, simplifying the task for the learner, but breaking the link with the modern language. In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ...

Following the final adoption of the Demotic (Dhimotiki) form of the language, in 1982, monotonic orthography was imposed by law. The latter uses only the acute accent (or sometimes a vertical bar intentionally distinct from any of the traditional accents) and diaeresis and omits the breathings. Some individuals, institutions, and publishers continue to prefer the polytonic system, though an official reintroduction of the polytonic system does not seem probable. Main article: Greek language Modern Greek (Νέα Ελληνικά or Νεοελληνική, lit. ... Monotonic orthography is the simplified way for spelling modern Greek introduced in 1982. ... The acute accent (  ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ... Vertical bar, verti-bar, vertical line, divider line, or pipe is the name of the character (|). Broken bar (¦) is a separate character. ...

In an intermediate stage (between the beginning of the 20th century and 1982 official since the 1960s), the grave was replaced by the acute under certain circumstances, in particular in handwriting. Greek typewriters from that era did not have keys for the grave accent. The grave was also not taught in primary schools where instruction was in Demotic. This system is still used in some publications such as the periodical Estia. Although still popular with a few writers and in less developed countries, the typewriter has largely been replaced by the word processor. ... The Estia (Greek polytonic Ἑστία, monotonic Εστία) is an Athenian daily newspaper. ...

Sample Greek text

The Lord's Prayer in a 4th century uncial manuscript Codex Sinaiticus, before the adoption of miniscule polytonic.

Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The Book of Kells, c. ... A portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, containing Esther 2:3-8. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ...

Computer encoding

There have been problems in representing polytonic Greek on computers, and in displaying polytonic Greek on computer screens and printouts, but these have largely been overcome by the advent of Unicode and appropriate fonts. Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... A font can mean: A member of a typeface family; or digital font - file format that encapsulates a typeface family in a database. ...

While the tonos of monotonic orthography looks similar to the oxia of polytonic orthography in most fonts, Unicode has historically had separate symbols for letters with these diacritics. For example, the monotonic "Greek small letter alpha with tonos" is at U+03AC, while the polytonic "Greek small letter alpha with oxia" is at U+1F71. The monotonic and polytonic accent however have been de jure equivalent since 1986, and accordingly the "oxia" diacritic in Unicode decomposes canonically to the monotonic "tonos" -- both are underlyingly treated as equivalent to the Western acute accent, U+0301.

The following tables list some of the characters required in polytonic Greek.

Upper case

Note that depending on the font used in your browser, the upper-case letters with iota subscript may display with a separate (adscript) iota.

Lower case

See also

• Greek alphabet
• Diacritic
• Katharevousa
• Greek orthography
• Diacritics (Greek alphabet)
• Minuscule
• Monotonic orthography

The Greek alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Greek language since about the 9th century BCE. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel and consonant alike. ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... Katharevousa (Greek Καθαρεύουσα, IPA: ) is a form of the Greek language, created during the early 19th century by Adamantios Korais (1748-1833). ... The orthography of the Greek language ultimately has its roots in the adoption of the Greek alphabet in the 9th century BC. Early Greek writing was phonetic, and different in each dialect. ... In the Greek alphabet, vowels can carry diacritics, namely accents and breathings. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Letter case. ... Monotonic orthography is the simplified way for spelling modern Greek introduced in 1982. ...

External links

• Citizens' Movement for the Reintroduction of the Polytonic System, in Greek, English and French
• Public domain Greek polytonic unicode fonts Including instructions on the use of fonts
• Athena, public domain polytonic Greek font
• Gentium — a typeface for the nations, a freely available font including polytonic Greek support
• History of accentuation in Ancient Greek and tutorial
• How the law to abandon polytonic orthography was passed in the Greek parliament, in Greek