The Greek Alphabet

This table gives the Greek letters, their names, equivalent English letters, and tips for
pronouncing those letters which are pronounced differently from the equivalent
English letters. (There are actually several acceptable ways to pronounce New
Testament Greek. For the gory details, look here.)

Sigma ():There are two forms for the letter Sigma. When written at the end of a
word, it is written like this: . If it occurs anywhere else, it is written like this: .

Upsilon ():In the above table, we suggest that you pronounce this letter like "u" in
"put". The preferred pronunciation is actually more like the German "ü" as in
"Brücke", or like the French "u" as in "tu". If you do not speak German or French,
don't worry about it, just pronounce it the way the table suggests.
Xi (): This is the same sound as "ch" in "Bach", which does not sound like "ch" in
"chair". The same sound occurs in the Scottish "Loch", as in "Loch Lomond", or the
German "ach!".

Dipthongs When two vowels combine to make one sound, it is called a dipthong.

There are seven dipthongs in Greek:

The "eu" combination is probably the hardest to learn for most people. It may help to
take the "ow" sound and say it slowly: if you notice, there are actually two sounds in
"ow" - it starts out with "ah", then glides to an "oo" sound, "ah-oo". Try doing the
same with "e" (as in "edward") and "oo" - "e-oo". This is a little like the "e-w" in
Edward, if you remove the "d".

The Alphabet

(Click on the speaker icon, next to the letter name, to hear the pronunciation in Modern Greek)

Letter Name & Sound Modern Greek pronunciation Classic Greek Pronunciation (Attic)

Alpha

[a], as in “father”. Same as [a] in Spanish and Italian. Phonetically, this sound is: open, central,
and unrounded.As in Modern Greek

Beta
 [v], as in “vet”; a voiced labiodental fricative. [b], as in “bet”; a voiced bilabial
plosive.Evidence

Gamma

[gh], a sound that does not exist in English. If followed by the sound [u] then it sounds almost
like the initial sound in “woman”, but with the back of the tongue touching more to the back (soft)
palate. To pronounce [gha], try to isolate “w” from “what” without rounding your lips, and then say [a].
In Castilian Spanish this sound exists in “amiga”. Same is true for [gho]: try eliminating the [u] sound
from “water”. (C. Spanish: “amigo”.) On the other hand, due to a phonetic phenomenon called
palatalization, [ghe] sounds a bit like “ye” in “yes”, and [ghi] sounds a bit like “yi” in “yield”. Phonetically,
gamma is a voiced velar fricative. (Its palatalized version is a voiced palatal fricative.) [g], as in “got”;
a voiced velar plosive. Evidence

Delta

[th], as in “this”; a voiced dental fricative. [d], as in “do”; a voiced alveolar plosive.
Evidence

Epsilon

[e] as in “pet”, except that the [e] in “pet” (and other similar English words) is lax, whereas in
Greek it is tense. To pronounce a tense [e] pull the edges of your lips to the sides a bit more than when
you say “pet”. (We pull the edges of our lips to the sides when we smile; but I don’t mean you need to
smile every time you pronounce the Greek epsilon, OK? )

As in Modern Greek

Zeta
 [z], as in “zone”, a voiced alveolar fricative. Actually, the remark for sigma (see below) applies to
zeta as well (it is shifted a bit towards [Z], as in “pleasure”). Read the remark for sigma to understand
why, and how to pronounce it. [zd], as in “Mazda”. Also: [z], and even: [dz].Evidence

Eta

[i], as in “meet”, but shorter, not so long. This is one of the three [i] in the Greek alphabet; they
all have identical pronunciation. The reason for this redundancy has to do with Classic Greek, where
they were not redundant. long open mid-[e], as in “thread” (but long). Evidence

Theta

[th], as in “think”; a voiceless dental fricative. In Castilian Spanish: “zorro”. [th], as in “top”,
but more aspirated.Evidence

Iota

[i], exactly like eta (see above). The name of the letter is pronounced “yota” in Modern Greek.
(the reason for the y-sound in front of the letter’s name is due to phonetic transformation of [io] into
[yo]). As in Modern Greek

10

Kappa

[k], as in “skip”. Notice that in English [k] is aspirated if it appears word-initially; Greek makes no
such distinction. When followed by the vowels [e] or [i] it becomes palatalized — for the exact
pronunciation please check the page on palatalization. Phonetically, it is a voiceless velar plosive. (Its
palatalized version is a voiceless palatal plosive.)As in Modern Greek

11
Lambda

[l] as in “lap”. When followed by the vowed [i] it becomes palatalized, turning to a sound that
does not exist in English (check the page on palatalization). The name of the letter is pronounced
“lamtha” ([b] is eliminated because it is difficult to pronounce it between [m] and [th]). A voiced alveolar
lateral approximant. As in Modern Greek

12

Mu

[m], as in “map”; a voiced bilabial nasal. Notice that the name of the letter is pronounced “mi”
(mee), not “mew” as in American English. As in Modern Greek

13

Nu

[n], as in “noble”; a voiced alveolar nasal. When followed by the vowed [i] it becomes
palatalized, turning to a sound that does not exist in English (but exists in Spanish, written as ñ; see the
page on palatalization). Notice that the name of the letter is pronounced “ni” (nee), not “new” as in
American English. As in Modern Greek

14

Ksi

[ks] as in “fox”. Contrary to the English “x”, the letter ksi does not change pronunciation at the
beginning of a word (it does not become a [z]; Greeks have no trouble starting a word with [k]+[s]). For
example, in the word ksenofovia (ξενοφοβία = xenophobia) the initial sound [k] is not omitted. Don’t put
any aspiration between [k] and [s] when pronouncing this letter. The remark for sigma applies to the
second constituent of this letter, too. As in Modern Greek

15

Omicron
 Same like [o] in “got” the way it is pronounced in British English. Notice how the vowel in British
“got” is tense, which means that you should really round your lips when you pronounce the Greek [o]. A
mid-close back rounded vowel. As in Modern Greek

16

Pi

[p], as in “spot”; a voiceless bilabial plosive. Notice that in English [p] is aspirated if it appears
word-initially; Greek makes no such distinction. As in Modern Greek

17

Rho

[rh], a sound that does not exist in English (but exists in Scottish). Sounds very much like the
Italian, or Russian [r], or the Spanish [r] in “caro”. (Spanish speakers: in Greek there is no difference in
how long you trill your rho; but better to make it like in “caro” than like in “carro”.) Phonetically, it is a
voiced alveolar trill. Probably as in Modern Greek. Word-initially: aspirated: [hr]

18

Sigma

[s], as is “soap”; a voiceless alveolar fricative. Actually, if you listen carefully to native Greek
speakers, it sounds a bit between [s] and [sh] (probably because there is no [sh] in Greek, so the sound is
somewhat shifted in the phonological space). However, to the native English ear it sounds much closer
to [sh] than to [s], whereas every native Greek speaker would swear they pronounce it exactly like the
English [s], unless forced to admit the difference by looking at spectrograms. In reality, you can produce
it like this: feel where your tongue is when you say [s] (very close to the front teeth, right?) Now feel
where it is when you say [sh] (far back). Place it somewhere midway, and you will produce the Greek [s].
(You’ll find that you’ll need to make a similar adjustment to the shape of your lips, midway through
rounded for [sh] and tense for [s]; in the Greek sigma the lips are relaxed.) This is the way “s” is
pronounced in Castilian Spanish (as opposed to Latin American Spanish). Notice that the second way of
writing the lower case sigma is used exclusively when the letter appears at the end of a word (there is
only one capital form). Probably as in Modern Greek

19

Tau
 [t], as in “stop”; a voiceless alveolar plosive. Notice that in English [t] is aspirated if it appears
word-initially; Greek makes no such distinction. As in Modern Greek

20

Upsilon

[i], exactly like eta and iota (see above). The name of the letter is pronounced [ipsilon] (ee-psee-
lon), not “yupsilon” as it is called in American English. Rounded [i], as in French “une”. Evidence

21

Phi

[f] as in “fat”; a voiceless labiodental fricative. [ph], as in “pit”, but more aspirated.Evidence

22

Chi

[ch], a sound that does not exist in English (but exists in Scottish, as in “loch”; German: “Bach”;
Spanish: “Jorge”). When followed by vowels [e] or [i] it is pronounced as in German “ich”. For the exact
pronunciation in this case, please check the page on palatalization. Phonetically, it is a voiceless velar
fricative. (Its palatalized version is a voiceless palatal fricative.) [kh], as in “cut”, but more
aspirated.Evidence

23

Psi

[ps] as in “lopsided”. Contrary to English, the sound of the letter does not change at the
beginning of a word (it does not become a [s]; Greeks have no trouble starting a word with [p]+[s]). For
example, in the wordpsychologia (ψυχολογία = psychology) the initial sound [p] is not omitted. Don’t
put any aspiration between [p] and [s] when pronouncing this letter. The remark for sigma applies to the
second constituent of this letter, too. As in Modern Greek
24

Omega

[o], exactly like omicron. (Once again, the reason for the redundancy is to be found in Classic
Greek.) Long open mid-back [o], as in “law”. Evidence

Phonology and Orthography

Oops! Twenty-four letters only? Surely some sounds must be missing?

That’s correct. There are sounds common in other languages that do not exist in Greek. Such sounds are
all the postalveolar fricatives and postalveolar affricates ([sh] as in “shop”, [Z] as in “pleasure”, [ch] as in
“church”, and [dZ] as in “job”). So what do Greeks do when they want to pronounce foreign words with
these sounds? If they are not trained to pronounce correctly, they simply transform these postalveolar
sounds to their corresponding alveolar ones: [sh] [s], [Z] [z], [ch] [ts], [dZ] [dz]. Ask a Greek to
pronounce “fish ’n chips” next time you want to have some linguistic fun.

And what about other very common sounds, like [b], [d], [g], etc.? These seem to be missing from the
alphabet, too! Are they also missing from the repertoire of the sounds of the language?

No! These are existent as sounds in the language. It is just that there are no single letters to denote
them. When Greeks want to write those sounds they write them as two-letter combinations: [b] is
written as μπ (mu + pi), [d] as ντ (nu + tau), and [g] as γκ (gamma + kappa), or as γγ (double gamma).
Why all this trouble? Remember, as explained in the introductory paragraph on this page, the sounds
[b], [d], and [g] used to exist in Classic Greek. Later, probably some time after the New Testament was
written in the so-called koine (common) Greek, these three sounds had shifted in pronunciation to the
corresponding “soft” ones ([v], [th], and [gh]). This left a void in the phonological space. Words that
contained combinations like “mp” and “nt” started being pronounced as [mb] and [nd], respectively. So
the “plosive” sounds were re-introduced, but pairs of letters were used now to denote them.

There is one more sound in the language which is absent from the alphabet: it is the “ingma”, the last
consonant in “king”. This sound is very rare in Greek, and when it appears (as in “άγχος”: anxiety;
“έλεγχος”: checking) it is denoted by the combination gamma + chi, with the gamma pronounced as
ingma.

All of the above plus much more, including the pervasive phenomenon of palatalization, can be found in
this page on the details of Modern Greek pronunciation,which includes sound samples with the author’s
voice for all of the presented examples.
You may also find useful this page, showing the sounds of Modern Greek against all possible sounds of
any language in the world. The tables for consonants and vowels in that page are very familiar to
linguists, but you don’t need to be a linguist to understand it.

What about vowels? Is there any similarity with the English vowels, or with those of any other language?

Vowels in Greek are easy. That is, if you are not a native speaker of English! That’s because although
English is very rich in vowel sounds, still, it lacks almost completely the Greek vowels. The latter are
more like the vowels of Italian, Spanish, or Japanese: they are the five sounds [a], [e], [i], [o], and [u](6).
Now, there are three letters for [i] in the alphabet (eta, iota, and upsilon), pronounced identically, and
two letters for [o] (omicron and omega), also pronounced identically. For the sound [u] (as in “loot”) the
combination ου (omicron + upsilon) is used.

Here are three good rules of thumb for native English speakers:

Greek vowels never sound like glides. That is, English speakers tend to pronounce Greek [e] almost
always as [ei] (as in “bay”, “buffet”, “claim”, etc.), a phenomenon known as gliding. In Greek that’s
wrong! Try to avoid adding the sound [i] at the end just stay with [e] (almost like “bet”, but notice, that
[e] in “bet” is lax; whenever the tense [e] is pronounced in English, it glides and sounds like [ei]). The
same is true for [o]: Avoid pronouncing it as [ow] (as in “rope”, “bone”); just stay with [o], as in “awe”,
“law”, etc., but make it a bit shorter (and don’t open your mouth as much as is required by “awe”; that’s
suitable for the Classic omega; Modern Greek [o] is a bit more closed).

If you know Spanish, or Italian, or Japanese(6), there is a one-to-one correspondence between the five
vowel sounds in these languages and Greek. Trust your knowledge then, and use it.

Greek words often end in [s] (sigma), and when English speakers hear Greeks pronouncing such endings
they think they hear [sh]. (For an explanation read the comments of the letter sigma, in the table.) If you
can’t reproduce the Greek sigma exactly, simply approximate it with English “s”, as in “boss”.
Remember, there is no [sh] in Greek (except in the dialect of Crete, to be accurate), and that’s why
hearing [sh] sounds very foreign to the Greek ear.

So, sounds simple. Is there anything else about vowels?

Not in pronunciation. In writing, however, there is. There are three so-called “diphthongs”, which are
not diphthongs anymore, but digraphs. (A diphthong is a long vowel with more than one parts, each of
which has a different quality, such as the ou in “loud”, or the oy in “boy”; a digraph is two letters which,
when put together, are read as one unit, such as the th in “think”, or the ph in “graph”.) Here are the
Greek digraphs of vowels:

DigraphModern Greek pronunciation Classic Greek Pronunciation (Attic)

Exactly like ε (epsilon, 5th letter, see above) [ai], as in “buy”. Evidence

Exactly like ι (iota, 9th letter, see above) [ei], as in “bay”. Evidence

Exactly like ι (iota, 9th letter, see above) [oi], as in “boy”. Evidence

Exactly like ι (iota, 9th letter, see above; also read comment below) ~[yui]. Evidence

[u], already explained in a previous paragraph As in Modern Greek

[av] if the following sound is voiced, and [af] if the following sound is unvoiced [au], as in “loud”.
Evidence

[ev] if the following sound is voiced, and [ef] if the following sound is unvoiced [eu]. Evidence

[iv] if the following sound is voiced, and [if] if the following sound is unvoiced ~[e:u]. Evidence

Thus, Archimedes’s famous “eureka!” (εύρηκα) in Modern Greek is pronounced as [evrika] (with the
stress on epsilon); but in ancient Greek it should be [eure:ka] (again with the stress on the first vowel of
the diphthong, i.e., the [e]). The digraph ηυ (eta + upsilon) is extremely rare in Modern Greek; it appears
in three verb-forms only: εφηύρα [efivra] (=“I invented”), απηύδησα [apivthisa] (=“I got fed up”), and
απηύθυνα [apifthina] (=“I directed my speech to sb.”); it was much more common in ancient Greek,
though. Also, the digraph υι (upsilon + iota) appears only in a very small number of Modern Greek
words: υιός [ios] (=“son”, but this form is obsolete; the modern one is γιος), and its derivatives: υιοθετώ
(=“adopt”), υιοθεσία (=“adoption”), υιικός (=“filial”) and a few rare ones, such as άρπυια (~a
mythological creature), καθεστηκυία (=“established, prevailing” [fem.]), etc.

If you want to know the reason why these weird-looking combinations of letters exist, once again, blame
ancient Greek, in which these were true diphthongs. When later the vowel space was flattened to its
present five members, and no long vowels existed anymore, the diphthongs were transformed as the
table above shows.
Does that mean that the sound [ai] (as in “buy”), for example, can never occur in Modern Greek,
because if written as αι it would be pronounced [e]?

It is possible to have the letters alpha and iota next to each other and producing the sound [ai], but then
we need to show this in writing. We do this by putting a pair of dots, the diaeresis, over the iota, like
this: αϊ, as in the word παϊδάκι [paithaki] (=“rib steak”). It is even possible to have the stress together
with the diaeresis over the iota: παΐδι [paithi] (=“rib”). The diaeresis can “dismiss” any of the vowel-
digraphs: αϊ, εϊ, οϊ, υϊ, οϋ, αϋ, and εϋ (ηϋ does not occur in Modern Greek), in which case the two
constituent vowels are pronounced separately. More about the diaeresis in my text on accent marks.

What are those short straight lines placed over some vowels in Greek texts?

That’s the stress. It shows which syllable should be pronounced slightly higher in pitch than the rest. I
suggest that you visit this page of mine to learn all the details about how to place accent marks to show
the stress in Greek. But if you want only a brief description, perhaps the following two paragraphs would
suffice.

In Modern Greek, the accent mark is placed only in lowercase writing, and only over the vowel of the
stressed syllable. If the vowel is written with a digraph (see above), the accent mark is placed over the
second letter of the pair. Monosyllabic words are not shown with stress, since the information would be
redundant. In Greek (of all times), only one of the last three syllables of a word can be stressed. Native
Greek speakers “internalize” this rule (they also learn it explicitly at school), and tend to apply it even to
languages that allow placement of stress on any syllable, such as English. (For example, the
worddifficulty is often pronounced [dee-`fee-kal-tee] by Greeks who start learning English as a second
language.)

In Classic Greek there were no lowercase letters, only capitals. So there were no accent marks over the
letters. Later, during the Hellenistic times (last three centuries BC) lowercase letters were introduced,
and along with them, the accent marks. However, the situation was quite complex, because there were
three marks for the stress, and two “aspiration marks”, placed over the initial vowel of a word, if any.
One of the latter two (the “rough breathing mark”, written like a tiny “c”) stood in place of the by-then-
obsolete initial letter H, and was pronounced like English [h] (in Classic times this letter was actually
written). So, words like “history”, “hydrogen”, “hour”, “Hellenic”, and many others, passed into English
(filtered first through Latin) with the initial “h” written and pronounced, while the corresponding Greek
words were written with the rough breathing mark over the initial vowel. Later, even the pronunciation
of this mark was dropped, so one had to learn what breathing mark to put over the initial vowel without
having any clue from pronunciation. This situation lasted until fairly recently (as a child, I had to learn
those orthographic rules, too). In 1982 all breathing marks were officially dropped, and the three types
of stress marks were reduced to one and even that one is used only on polysyllabic words.

Do Greek letters have some inherent meaning?(7) What are the dictionary definitions of words like
“alpha”, “beta”, etc.?
No, there is no meaning in Greek letters. You are probably thinking of Chinese ideograms, or ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphs, which are symbols with some associated meaning. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta,
etc., bear no more meaning in Greek than a, bee, cee, dee, etc., bear in English. Their names are just a
bit longer, that’s all, that’s why they might look like meanigful words. Now, there is an English letter the
name of which can be said to have some meaning, however trivial: it’s w, which we pronounce “double-
u”. The name of this letter is derived from ancient forms of it, when it was written as two U’s, joined like
this: UU. Similarly, there are a handful of Greek letters that can be said to have such trivial meanings,
associated always with their pronunciation: epsilon (εψιλον) is really e-psilon, meaning “light e”, or
“bare e”, or “mere e”, a name introduced in Byzantine times, to distinguish it from the other [e], the
digraph alpha-iota (see above). In ancient (e.g., classical) times this distinction was unnecessary, because
ε and αι had completely different sounds, so the name of this letter was simply ε. Similarly, upsilon
(υψιλον) is really u-psilon, meaning “mere u”, distinguishing it from the other two [i], ι and η; in ancient
Greek its name was υ. Finally, omicron (ομικρον) is o-micron, or “little o”, to distinguish it from o-mega
(ωμεγα), or “great o”. Again, these names were introduced in later times, when the pronunciations of
the two letters had become identical; in ancient times their names were simply ο and ω.

That said, it should be mentioned that the origin of the Greek letters, which is the ancient Phoenician
alphabet, did assign meaning to each letter. For example, the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet (a
close cousin of the Hebrew alphabet, the first three letters of which are aleph, beth, and gimel) was
written as an invertedA, a stylized depiction of the triangular head of an ox with its horns. In Phoenician,
the name of the letter was the word for “ox”. Similarly, the letter gamma (Hebrew gimel) is derived from
the Phoenician word for “camel”; and so on. But that all is not Greek, it is Semitic languages. In Greek
the letters are just symbols, devoid of meaning.