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106-536: Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet . It originally stood for the sound / w / but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6 . Whereas it was originally called waw or wau , its most common appellation in classical Greek is digamma ; as a numeral, it was called episēmon during the Byzantine era and is now known as stigma after

212-464: A remains in most positions Long ā remains in an initial or medial position. Final ā starts to sound similar to [ɔː] so that it is written ú or, rarely, u . Short e "generally remains unchanged;" before a labial in a medial syllable, it becomes u or i , and before another vowel, e raises to higher-mid [ẹ], written í . Long ē similarly raises to higher-mid [ẹ], the sound of written í or íí . Short i becomes written í . Long ī

318-499: A Latin L and a form of Σ sigma that resembled a Latin S. Other elements foreshadowing the Latin forms include Γ gamma shaped like a pointed C ( [REDACTED] ), Δ delta shaped like a pointed D ( [REDACTED] ), and Ρ rho shaped like R ( [REDACTED] ). The Doric dialect of Corinth was written in a distinctive alphabet that belonged to the "eastern" ("dark blue") type as far as its treatment of /pʰ, kʰ, ps, ks/

424-429: A Latin R. In many red varieties, Δ too had variants where the left stroke was vertical, and the right edge of the letter sometimes rounded, approaching a Latin D ( [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ). The crooked shape of Σ could be written with different numbers of angles and strokes. Besides the classical form with four strokes ( [REDACTED] ), a three-stroke form resembling an angular Latin S ( [REDACTED] )

530-412: A compromise form between an Ε and an Ι , it is thought that it denoted a raised allophone, approaching /i/ . It is attested in only one document, a set of grave stelae from 424 BC. Many of the letters familiar from the classical Greek alphabet displayed additional variation in shapes, with some of the variant forms being characteristic of specific local alphabets. The form of Ζ generally had

636-588: A continuation of ancient dialects of Greek. Oscan's usage declined following the Social War . Graffiti in towns across the Oscan speech area indicate it remained in colloquial usage. One piece of evidence that supports the colloquial usage of the language is the presence of Oscan graffiti on walls of Pompeii that were reconstructed after the earthquake of 62 CE , which must therefore have been written between 62 and 79 CE. Other scholars argue that this

742-503: A development parallel to that of epsilon (which changed from [REDACTED] to "E", with the arms becoming orthogonal and the lower end of the stem being shed off). For digamma, this led to the two main variants of classical "F" and square [REDACTED] . The latter of these two shapes became dominant when used as a numeral, with "F" only very rarely employed in this function. However, in Athens, both of these were avoided in favour of

848-579: A formal decree was passed that public writing would switch to the new Ionic orthography consistently, as part of the reform after the Thirty Tyrants . This new system was subsequently also called the "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the archon Eucleides who oversaw the decision. The Euboean alphabet was used in the cities of Eretria and Chalcis and in related colonies in southern Italy , notably in Cumae , Pithecusae and Rhegion . It

954-443: A mirrored form, when text was written from right to left, as was frequently done in the earliest period. Athens , until the late 5th century BC, used a variant of the "light blue" alphabet, with ΧΣ for /ks/ and ΦΣ for /ps/ . Ε was used for all three sounds /e, eː, ɛː/ (correspondinɡ to classical Ε, ΕΙ, Η respectively), and Ο was used for all of /o, oː, ɔː/ (corresponding to classical Ο, ΟΥ, Ω respectively). Η

1060-451: A number of alternative numeral shapes ( [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ). In cursive handwriting, the square-C form developed further into a rounded form resembling a "C" (found in papyrus manuscripts as [REDACTED] , on coins sometimes as [REDACTED] ). It then developed a downward tail at the end ( [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ) and finally adopted

1166-617: A number of western European accounts of the Greek alphabet written in Latin during the early Middle Ages. One of them is the work De loquela per gestum digitorum , a didactic text about arithmetics attributed to the Venerable Bede , where the three Greek numerals for 6, 90 and 900 are called "episimon", "cophe" and "enneacosis" respectively. From Beda, the term was adopted by the seventeenth century humanist Joseph Justus Scaliger . However, misinterpreting Beda's reference, Scaliger applied

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1272-470: A numeral in Greek to the present day, in contexts comparable to those where Latin numerals would be used in English, for instance in regnal numbers of monarchs or in enumerating chapters in a book, although in practice the letter sequence ΣΤ΄ is much more common. Digamma was derived from Phoenician waw, which was shaped roughly like a Y ( [REDACTED] ). Of the two Greek reflexes of waw, digamma retained

1378-498: A pronunciation of /s/. Roger Woodard, professor of classics at the University at Buffalo , hypothesizes that San may originally have stood for [ts]. In any case, each dialect tended to use either San or Sigma to the exclusion of the other, and while the earliest abecedaria listed both letter shapes separately in their separate alphabetic positions, later specimens from the sixth century onwards tend to list only one of them. San

1484-424: A shape like a Latin "s" ( [REDACTED] ) These cursive forms are also found in stone inscriptions in late antiquity. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the cursive shape digamma was visually conflated with a ligature of sigma (in its historical "lunate" form) and tau ( [REDACTED] + [REDACTED] = [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ). The στ-ligature had become common in minuscule handwriting from

1590-534: A single phoneme, the raising sound in Naxos was still distinct both from /aː/ and /ɛː/ , hence probably an [æ] -like sound. Yet another distinction was found in a group of cities in the north-east of the Peloponnese , most notably Corinth : here, it was not the open-mid /ɛː/ that was distinguished among the three e -sounds, but the closed-mid /eː/ . The normal letter epsilon ( Ε ) was used exclusively for

1696-410: A straight stem ( [REDACTED] ) in all local alphabets in the archaic period. Θ was mostly crossed ( [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] ). Ξ typically had a vertical stem ( [REDACTED] ), and Φ was most often [REDACTED] . Υ and Ψ had frequent variants where the strokes branched out from the bottom of the character, resulting in [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] respectively. Η

1802-462: A variant letter was invented to distinguish the two functions: Η was used for /h/ , and [REDACTED] for /ɛː/ . In south Italian colonies, especially Taranto , after c. 400 BC, a similar distinction was made between Η for /ɛː/ , and [REDACTED] for /h/ . This latter symbol was later turned into the diacritic sign for rough breathing by the Alexandrine grammarians. In Naxos

1908-431: A variant of san , to denote what was probably a [ts] -like sound in environments reflecting etymological Proto-Greek */kʷ/ . In the highly-divergent Pamphylian Greek , the letter digamma ( Ϝ ) existed side by side with another distinctive form [REDACTED] . It has been surmised that in this dialect the sound /w/ may have changed to labiodental /v/ in some environments. The F-shaped letter may have stood for

2014-475: Is also confirmed by the Hittite name of Troy , Wilusa , corresponding to the Greek name * Wilion , classical Ilion (Ilium). The / w / sound was lost at various times in various dialects, mostly before the classical period. In Ionic , / w / had probably disappeared before Homer 's epics were written down (7th century BC), but its former presence can be detected in many cases because its omission left

2120-546: Is also derived from waw ( [REDACTED] ). The "light blue" type still lacks Ξ ( /ks/ ), and adds only letters for /pʰ/ ( Φ ) and /kʰ/ ( Χ ). Both of these correspond to the modern standard alphabet. The light blue system thus still has no separate letters for the clusters /ps/ , /ks/ . In this system, these are typically spelled ΦΣ and ΧΣ , respectively. This is the system found in Athens (before 403 BC) and several Aegean islands. The "dark blue" type, finally,

2226-424: Is also the neuter form of the related adjective " ἐπίσημος " ("distinguished", "remarkable"). This word was connected to the number "six" through early Christian mystical numerology . According to an account of the teachings of the heretic Marcus given by the church father Irenaeus , the number six was regarded as a symbol of Christ, and was hence called " ὁ ἐπίσημος ἀριθμός " ("the outstanding number"); likewise,

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2332-687: Is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy . The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages . Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian and South Picene . Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites , the Aurunci ( Ausones ), and the Sidicini . The latter two tribes were often grouped under the name " Osci ". The Oscan group

2438-528: Is considered to be the most conservative of all the known Italic languages , and among attested Indo-European languages it is rivaled only by Greek in the retention of the inherited vowel system with the diphthongs intact. Oscan was originally written in a specific "Oscan alphabet", one of the Old Italic scripts derived from (or cognate with) the Etruscan alphabet . Later inscriptions are written in

2544-521: Is descriptive of the original letter's shape, which looked like a Γ (gamma) placed on top of another. The name episēmon was used for the numeral symbol during the Byzantine era and is still sometimes used today, either as a name specifically for digamma/stigma, or as a generic term for the whole group of extra-alphabetic numeral signs (digamma, koppa and sampi ). The Greek word " ἐπίσημον ", from ἐπί- ( epi- , "on") and σήμα ( sēma , "sign"), literally means "a distinguishing mark", "a badge", but

2650-403: Is eo die (8) comitia non habuerit. In English: (3) … he shall take oath with the assent of the majority of the senate, provided that not less than (4) 40 are present, when the matter is under advisement. If anyone by right of intercession shall prevent the assembly, before preventing it, (5) he shall swear wittingly in the assembly without guile, that he prevents this assembly rather for

2756-521: Is not present in Latin). Oscan nouns, like in Latin, are divided into multiple declension patterns. The second declension in Oscan has a few features that distinguish it from its Latin counterpart. These nouns in Oscan are declined as follows: Like in Latin, the third declension in Oscan is a merger of the i -stem nouns with the consonant-stem nouns. These nouns in Oscan are declined as follows. Neuters are not attested. Verbs in Oscan are inflected for

2862-478: Is not strong evidence for the survival of Oscan as an official language in the area, given the disappearance of public inscriptions in Oscan after Roman colonization. It is possible that both languages existed simultaneously under different conditions, in which Latin was given political, religious, and administrative importance while Oscan was considered a "low" language. This phenomenon is referred to as diglossia with bilingualism. Some Oscan graffiti exists from

2968-676: Is part of the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic family, and includes the Oscan language and three variants ( Hernican , Marrucinian and Paelignian ) known only from inscriptions left by the Hernici , Marrucini and Paeligni , minor tribes of eastern central Italy. Adapted from the Etruscan alphabet, the Central Oscan alphabet was used to write Oscan in Campania and surrounding territories from the 5th century BCE until at least

3074-497: Is reported to have mentioned that the numeral symbol for 6 was called gabex by his contemporaries. The same reference in Ammonius has alternatively been read as gam(m)ex by some modern authors. Ammonius as well as later theologians discuss the symbol in the context of explaining the apparent contradiction and variant readings between the gospels in assigning the death of Jesus either to the "third hour" or "sixth hour", arguing that

3180-471: Is spelt with i but when written with doubling as a mark of length with ií . Short o remains mostly unchanged, written ú ; before a final -m , o becomes more like u . Long ō becomes denoted by u or uu . Short u generally remains unchanged; after t , d , n , the sound becomes that of iu . Long ū generally remains unchanged; it changed to an ī sound in monosyllables, and may have changed to an ī sound for final syllables. Oscan had

3286-685: Is the one that has all the consonant symbols of the modern standard alphabet: in addition to Φ and Χ (shared with the light blue type), it also adds Ψ (at the end of the alphabet), and Ξ (in the alphabetic position of Phoenician Samekh). This system is found in the cities of the Ionian dodecapolis , Knidos in Asia Minor, and in Corinth and Argos on the northeastern Peloponnese. The letter eta ( Η , [REDACTED] , originally called hēta ) had two different functions, both derived from

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3392-430: Is the original name of the alphabetic letter for / w / in ancient Greek. It is often cited in its reconstructed acrophonic spelling " ϝαῦ ". This form itself is not historically attested in Greek inscriptions, but the existence of the name can be inferred from descriptions by contemporary Latin grammarians, who render it as vau . In later Greek, where both the letter and the sound it represented had become inaccessible,

3498-469: Is thought to have survived three centuries of bilingualism with Greek between 400 and 100 BCE, making it "an unusual case of stable societal bilingualism" wherein neither language became dominant or caused the death of the other; however, over the course of the Roman period , both Oscan and Greek were progressively effaced from Southern Italy, excepting the controversial possibility of Griko representing

3604-480: The Byzantine ligature combining σ-τ as ϛ. Digamma or wau was part of the original archaic Greek alphabet as initially adopted from Phoenician . Like its model, Phoenician waw , it represented the voiced labial-velar approximant /w/ and stood in the 6th position in the alphabet between epsilon and zeta . It is the consonantal doublet of the vowel letter upsilon ( /u/ ), which was also derived from waw but

3710-450: The Greek and Latin alphabets . The Osci probably adopted the archaic Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BCE, but a recognizably Oscan variant of the alphabet is attested only from the 5th century BCE. At the beginning of the 3rd century BCE its sign inventory was extended over the classical Etruscan alphabet by the introduction of lowered variants of I and U, transcribed as Í and Ú. Ú came to be used to represent Oscan /o/, while U

3816-523: The meter defective. For example, the word ἄναξ (" (tribal) king , lord, (military) leader"), found in the Iliad , would have originally been ϝάναξ /wánaks/ (and is attested in this form in Mycenaean Greek), and the word οἶνος ("wine"), are sometimes used in the meter where a word starting with a consonant would be expected. Further evidence coupled with cognate-analysis shows that οἶνος

3922-503: The 19th century. Several different shapes of uppercase stigma can be found, with the lower end either styled as a small curved S-like hook ( [REDACTED] ), or as a straight stem, the latter either with a serif ( [REDACTED] ) or without one ( [REDACTED] ). An alternative uppercase stylization in some twentieth-century fonts is [REDACTED] , visually a ligature of Roman-style uppercase C and T. The characters used for numeric digamma/stigma are distinguished in modern print from

4028-535: The 1st century CE, but it is rare to find evidence from Italy of Latin-speaking Roman citizens representing themselves as having non–Latin-speaking ancestors. Oscan speakers came into close contact with the Latium population. Early Latin texts have been discovered nearby major Oscan settlements. For example, the Garigliano Bowl was found close to Minturnae , less than 40 kilometers from Capua , which

4134-460: The 1st century of the common era . In total, as of 2017, there were 800 found Oscan texts, with a rapid expansion in recent decades. Oscan was written in various scripts depending on time period and location, including the "native" Oscan script, the South Oscan script which was based on Greek, and the ultimately prevailing Roman Oscan script. In coastal zones of Southern Italy, Oscan

4240-679: The 1st century CE. Oscan is known from inscriptions dating as far back as the 5th century BCE. The most important Oscan inscriptions are the Tabula Bantina , the Oscan Tablet or Tabula Osca, and the Cippus Abellanus . In Apulia , there is evidence that ancient currency was inscribed in Oscan (dating to before 300 BCE) at Teanum Apulum . Oscan graffiti on the walls of Pompeii indicate its persistence in at least one urban environment well into

4346-529: The 9th century onwards. Both closed ( [REDACTED] ) and open ( [REDACTED] ) forms were subsequently used without distinction both for the ligature and for the numeral. The ligature took on the name of " stigma " or " sti ", and the name stigma is today applied to it both in its textual and in the numeral function. The association between its two functions as a numeral and as a sign for "st" became so strong that in modern typographic practice in Greece, whenever

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4452-441: The Greek language after the drop of / w / , the phoneme was once again registered, compare for example the spelling of Οὐάτεις for vates . In some local ( epichoric ) alphabets, a variant glyph of the letter digamma existed that resembled modern Cyrillic И . In one local alphabet, that of Pamphylia , this variant form existed side by side with standard digamma as two distinct letters. It has been surmised that in this dialect

4558-653: The Hellenistic era, the letter is therefore often described as a characteristic Aeolian feature. Loanwords that entered Greek before the loss of /w-/ lost that sound when Greek did. For instance, Oscan Viteliu ('land of the male calves', compare Latin : vitulus 'yearling, male calf') gave rise to the Greek word Italia . The Adriatic tribe of the Veneti was called in Ancient Greek : Ἐνετοί , romanized :  Enetoi . In loanwords that entered

4664-516: The Latin alphabet, the Oscan Z does not represent [ts] but instead [z] , which is not written differently from [s] in the native alphabet. When Oscan inscriptions are quoted, it is conventional to transliterate those in the "Oscan" alphabet into Latin boldface , those in the "Latin" alphabet into Latin italics , and those in the "Greek" alphabet into the modern Greek alphabet. Letters of all three alphabets are represented in lower case. Vowels are regularly lengthened before ns and nct (in

4770-491: The M-shaped letter San instead of standard Sigma to denote the sound /s/. It is unclear whether the distinction between the two letters originally corresponded to different phonetic realizations of the /s/ phoneme in different dialects. Epigrapher Lilian Hamilton Jeffery (1915–1986) conjectured that San originally stood for a voiced [z] sound, and that those Doric dialects that kept San instead of Sigma may have had such

4876-608: The Phoenician. The "red" (or western) type is the one that was later transmitted to the West and became the ancestor of the Latin alphabet , and bears some crucial features characteristic of that later development. The "blue" (or eastern) type is the one from which the later standard Greek alphabet emerged. The "green" (southern) type uses no additional letters beyond the Phoenician set, and typically also goes without Ξ ( /ks/ ). Thus,

4982-542: The West, where they inspired the Italic C; L-like shapes of Λ were particularly common in Euboea, Attica and Boeotia. Achaean colonies had a Γ in the form of single Ι -like vertical stroke. The letter Α had different minor variants depending on the position of the middle bar, with some of them being characteristic of local varieties. The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms. Besides

5088-406: The alphabet. It was one of three letters that were kept in this way in addition to the 24 letters of the classical alphabet, the other two being koppa (ϙ) for 90, and sampi (ϡ) for 900. During their history in handwriting in late antiquity and the Byzantine era, all three of these symbols underwent several changes in shape, with digamma ultimately taking the form of "ϛ". It has remained in use as

5194-401: The alphabetic position, but had its shape modified to [REDACTED] , while the upsilon retained the original shape but was placed in a new alphabetic position. Early Crete had an archaic form of digamma somewhat closer to the original Phoenician, [REDACTED] , or a variant with the stem bent sidewards ( [REDACTED] ). The shape [REDACTED] , during the archaic period, underwent

5300-416: The aspirated consonants ( /pʰ, kʰ/ ) and consonant clusters ( /ks, ps/ ) of Greek. These four types are often conventionally labelled as "green", "red", "light blue" and "dark blue" types, based on a colour-coded map in a seminal 19th-century work on the topic, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets by Adolf Kirchhoff (1867). The "green" (or southern) type is the most archaic and closest to

5406-465: The aspirated plosives /pʰ/ , /kʰ/ are spelled either simply as Π and Κ respectively, without a distinction from unaspirated /p/ , /k/ , or as digraphs ΠΗ , ΚΗ . (However, for the analogous /tʰ/ there is already a dedicated letter, Θ , taken from Phoenician.) Likewise, the clusters /ps/ , /ks/ are simply spelled ΠΣ , ΚΣ . This is the system found in Crete and in some other islands in

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5512-429: The character used to represent the ancient alphabetic digamma, the letter for the [w] sound. This is rendered in print by a Latin "F", or sometimes a variant of it specially designed to fit in typographically with Greek ( Ϝ ). It has a modern lowercase form ( ϝ ) that typically differs from Latin "f" by having two parallel horizontal strokes like the uppercase character, with the vertical stem often being somewhat slanted to

5618-621: The cities of Miletus , Ephesos , Halikarnassos , Erythrae , Teos (all situated in the region of Ionia in Asia Minor ), in the island of Samos , in the Ionian colony of Massilia , and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia ). In Pontic Mesembria , on the Black Sea coast of Thrace , it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of

5724-567: The city's name, spelled ΜΕͲΑ . The sound denoted by this letter was a reflex of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj] , *[kʰj] , *[tj] , *[tʰj], or *[tw] , and was probably an intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/ . In one attested document, the Arcadocypriot Greek of Mantineia used an innovative letter similar to И ( [REDACTED] ), probably derived from

5830-460: The consonant /h/ rather than for the vowel /ɛː/ . It also kept the archaic letters digamma ( Ϝ ) for /w/ and qoppa ( Ϙ ) for /k/ . San ( Ϻ ) for /s/ was not normally used in writing, but apparently still transmitted as part of the alphabet, because it occurs in abecedaria found in Italy and was later adopted by Etruscan. Like Athens, Euboea had a form of Λ lambda that resembled

5936-598: The consonant Β , in turn, Corinth used the special form [REDACTED] . The letter Ι was written like a Σ ( [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ). ]..........ΤΑΣ:ΧΑ.[ ]....ΚΕΑΣ:ΑΝΓΑΡΙΟΣ[ ]...ΑΥϜΙΟΣ:ΣΟΚΛΕΣ:[ ].ΤΙΔΑΣ:ΑΜΥΝΤΑΣ[ ]ΤΟΙ ΜΑΛΕϘΟ:ΚΑΙ.[ The following summary of the principal characteristic forms of representative local Greek scripts is based on the chapters on each dialect in Jeffery (1961). Letters representing long vowels are highlighted in yellow; digraphs are shown in parentheses. Oscan Oscan

6042-470: The cursive C-shaped form of numeric digamma is often indistinguishable from the C-shaped ("lunate") form that was then the common form of sigma . The similarity is still found today, since both the modern stigma (ϛ) and modern final sigma (ς) look identical or almost identical in most fonts; both are historically continuations of their ancient C-shaped forms with the addition of the same downward flourish. If

6148-861: The following categories: Present, future and future perfect forms in the active voice use the following set of personal endings: Imperfect, perfect indicative and all tenses of the subjunctive in the active voice use a different set of endings: Passive endings are attested only for the 3rd person: singular -ter , plural -nter . Perfect stems are derived from the present stem in different ways. Latin -vī- and -s- perfects are not attested in Oscan. Instead, Oscan uses its own set of forms, including reduplicated perfects such as deded 'gave', -tt- suffix as in prúfa-tt-ed 'approved', -k- suffix as in kella-k-ed 'collected, and -f- suffix as in aíkda-f-ed 'rebuilt'. Some verbs also use suppletive forms. Other tenses are formed by suffixation: The following non-finite forms are attested (all of them are based on

6254-473: The following diphthongs: The sounds of diphthongs remain unchanged from the Proto-Indo-European origins. The consonant inventory of Oscan is as follows: In Oscan, s between vowels did not undergo rhotacism as it did in Latin and Umbrian; but it was voiced, becoming the sound /z/ . However, between vowels, the original cluster rs developed either to a simple r with lengthening on

6360-410: The land within the boundaries where the temple of Hercules stands in the middle, may the senate allow him to build outside of the walls that encircle the sanctuary of Hercules, across the road leads there. And a building that a man from Nola builds, shall be of use by the people of Nola. And a building that a man from Abella builds, shall be of use by the people of Abella. But beyond the wall that encircle

6466-418: The latter of which the n is lost) and possibly before nf and nx as well. Anaptyxis , the development of a vowel between a liquid or nasal and another consonant, preceding or following, occurs frequently in Oscan; if the other (non-liquid/nasal) consonant precedes, the new vowel is the same as the preceding vowel. If the other consonant follows, the new vowel is the same as the following vowel. Short

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6572-516: The latter, while a new special symbol [REDACTED] (or, in Sicyon , [REDACTED] ) stood both for short /e/ and for /ɛː/ . Yet another variation of the system is found in neighbouring Tiryns : it uses the letter forms of the Corinthian system, [REDACTED] versus E, but with the functional values of the classic eta versus epsilon system. The letter Digamma ( Ϝ ) for the sound /w/

6678-417: The left stem descending lower than the right stem ( [REDACTED] ); this remained a distinguishing feature in those varieties that also had san ( [REDACTED] ) for /s/ . Π also typically had a shorter right stem ( [REDACTED] ). The top of Π could be curved rather than angular, approaching a Latin P ( [REDACTED] ). The Greek Ρ , in turn, could have a downward tail on the right, approaching

6784-443: The letter "X" in Latin, while it differs from the later standard Greek alphabet, where Χ stands for /kʰ/ , and Ψ stands for /ps/ . Only Φ for /pʰ/ is common to all non-green alphabets. The red type is found in most parts of central mainland Greece ( Thessaly , Boeotia and most of the Peloponnese ), as well as the island of Euboea , and in colonies associated with these places, including most colonies in Italy. *Upsilon

6890-528: The letter varies locally and over time. The most common early form is [REDACTED] . Over time it developed in analogy with Epsilon (which changed from [REDACTED] to "E"), becoming either the classical "F" or [REDACTED] . Early Crete had an archaic form [REDACTED] (which resembled its original model, the Y-shaped Phoenician waw [REDACTED] ), or a variant with the stem bent sideways ( [REDACTED] ). Some local scripts used

6996-442: The long close-mid /eː/ (later merged with the diphthong /ei/ , classical spelling ει ), and the short vowel /e/ (classical spelling ε ). In the psilotic dialects of Anatolia and adjacent eastern Aegean islands, as well as Crete , vocalic Η was used only for /ɛː/ . In a number of Aegean islands, notably Rhodes , Milos , Santorini and Paros , it was used both for /h/ and for /ɛː/ without distinction. In Knidos ,

7102-512: The middle of the 6th century BC. Some of the Doric regions, notably Corinth, Argos, Crete and Rhodes, kept it until the 5th century BC. A few letters have arisen from innovative letter distinctions, most of them for local alphabets. The new letter Omega ( Ω ) to denote the long half-open [ɔː] sound was invented first in the East, in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, at some time before 600 BC. It

7208-510: The name Ἰησοῦς ( Jesus ), having six letters, was " τὸ ἐπίσημον ὄνομα " ("the outstanding name"), and so on. The sixth-century treatise About the Mystery of the Letters , which also links the six to Christ, calls the number sign to Episēmon throughout. The same name is still found in a fifteenth-century arithmetical manual by the Greek mathematician Nikolaos Rabdas . It is also found in

7314-407: The name is rendered as βαῦ or οὐαῦ . In the 19th century, vau in English was a common name for the symbol ϛ in its numerical function, used by authors who distinguished it both from the alphabetic "digamma" and from ϛ as a στ ligature. The name digamma was used in ancient Greek and is the most common name for the letter in its alphabetic function today. It literally means "double gamma " and

7420-447: The name of its Phoenician model, hēth : the majority of Greek dialects continued to use it for the consonant /h/ , similar to its Phoenician value ( [ħ] ). However, the consonant /h/ was progressively lost from the spoken language (a process known as psilosis ), and in those dialects where this had already happened early on in the archaic period, Η was instead used to denote the long vowel /ɛː/ , which occurred next in its name and

7526-411: The native alphabet's H and one for its V . The letters η and ω do not indicate quantity. Sometimes, the clusters ηι and ωϝ denote the diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ respectively while ει and oυ are saved to denote monophthongs /iː/ and /uː/ of the native alphabet. At other times, ει and oυ are used to denote diphthongs, in which case o denotes the /uː/ sound. When written in

7632-468: The new /v/ sound, while the special И-shaped form signified those positions where the old /w/ sound was preserved. A special letter for a variant realization of the short /e/ sound, [REDACTED] , was briefly used in the Boeotian city of Thespiae in the late 5th century BC. It occurred in the place of normal epsilon ( Ε ) whenever the sound stood before another vowel. Since its shape suggests

7738-475: The notation of rhythm. It was then co-opted as a name specifically for the στ ligature, evidently because of the acrophonic value of its initial st- as well as the analogy with the name of sigma . Other names coined according to the same analogical principle are sti or stau . Archaic Greek alphabets A basic division into four major types of epichoric alphabets is commonly made according to their different treatment of additional consonant letters for

7844-407: The one numeral symbol could easily have been substituted for the other through a scribal error. The name "stigma" ( στίγμα ) was originally a common Greek noun meaning "a mark, dot, puncture" or generally "a sign", from the verb στίζω ("to puncture"). It had an earlier writing-related special meaning, being the name for a dot as a punctuation mark, used for instance to mark shortness of a syllable in

7950-441: The preceding vowel, or to a long rr (as in Latin), and at the end of a word, original rs becomes r just as in Latin. Unlike in Latin, the s is not dropped, either Oscan or Umbrian, from the consonant clusters sm , sn , sl : Umbrian `sesna "dinner," Oscan kersnu vs Latin cēna . Oscan nouns can have one of the seven cases: nominative , vocative , accusative , genitive , dative , ablative and locative (the latter

8056-1475: The present stem): Ekkum svaí píd herieset trííbarak avúm tereí púd liímítúm pernúm púís herekleís fíísnú mefiú íst, ehtrad feíhúss pús herekleís fíísnam amfret, pert víam pússt íst paí íp íst, pústin slagím senateís suveís tanginúd tríbarakavúm líkítud. íním íúk tríbarakkiuf pam núvlanús tríbarakattuset íúk tríbarakkiuf íním úíttiuf abellanúm estud. avt púst feíhúís pús físnam amfret, eíseí tereí nep abellanús nep núvlanús pídum tríbarakattíns. avt thesavrúm púd eseí tereí íst, pún patensíns, múíníkad tanginúd patensíns, íním píd eíseí thesavreí púkkapíd eestit aíttíúm alttram alttrús herríns. avt anter slagím abellanam íním núvlanam súllad víú uruvú íst. pedú íst eísaí víaí mefiaí teremenniú staíet. In Latin : Item si quid volent aedificare in territorio quod limitibus tenus quibus Herculis fanum medium est, extra muros, qui Herculis fanum ambiunt, [per] viam positum est, quae ibi est, pro finibus senatus sui sententia, aedificare liceto. Et id aedificium quam Nolani aedificaverint, id aedificium et usus Abellanorum esto. At post muros qui fanum ambiunt, in eo territorio nec Avellani nec Nolani quidquam aedificaverint. At thesaurum qui in eo territorio est, cum paterent, communi sententia paterent, et quidquid in eo thesauro quandoque extat, portionum alteram alteri caperent. At inter fines Abellanos et Nolanos ubique via curva est, [pedes] est in ea via media termina stant. In English: And if anyone shall want to build on

8162-478: The right or curved, and usually descending below the baseline . This character is used in Greek epigraphy to transcribe the text of ancient inscriptions that contain "Ϝ", and in linguistics and historical grammar when describing reconstructed proto-forms of Greek words that contained the sound /w/ . Throughout much of its history, the shape of digamma/stigma has often been very similar to that of other symbols, with which it can easily be confused. In ancient papyri,

8268-431: The sake of the public welfare, (6) rather than out of favor or malice toward anyone; and that too in accordance with the judgment of the majority of the senate. The presiding magistrate whose assembly is prevented in this way shall not hold the assembly on this day. Notes: Oscan carn- “part, piece” is related to Latin carn- “meat” (seen in English ‘carnivore’), from an Indo-European root *ker- meaning ‘cut’―apparently

8374-1437: The sanctuary, in that territory neither the Abellans nor the Nolans may build anything. But the treasury that is in that territory, when it is opened it shall be opened following a shared decision, and whatever is in that treasury, they shall share equally amongst them. But the road that as between the borders of Abella and Nola is a communal road. The boundaries stand in the middle of this road. out of six paragraphs in total, lines 3-8 (the first couple lines are too damaged to be clearly legible): (3) … deiuast maimas carneis senateis tanginud am … (4) XL osiins, pon ioc egmo comparascuster. Suae pis pertemust, pruter pan … (5) deiuatud sipus comenei, perum dolum malum, siom ioc comono mais egmas touti- (6)cas amnud pan pieisum brateis auti cadeis amnud; inim idic siom dat senates (7) tanginud maimas carneis pertumum. Piei ex comono pertemest, izic eizeic zicelei (8) comono ni hipid. In Latin: (3) … iurabit maximae partis senatus sententia [dummodo non minus] (4) XL adsint, cum ea res consulta erit. Si quis peremerit, prius quam peremerit, (5) iurato sciens in committio sine dolo malo, se ea comitia magis rei publicae causa, (6) quam cuiuspiam gratiae aut inimicitiae causa; idque se de senatus (7) sententia maximae partis perimere. Cui sic comitia perimet (quisquam),

8480-644: The sequence "στ" can never occur word-finally. The medieval s-like shape of digamma ( [REDACTED] ) has the same shape as a contemporary abbreviation for καὶ ("and"). Yet another case of glyph confusion exists in the printed uppercase forms, this time between stigma and the other numeral, koppa (90). In ancient and medieval handwriting, koppa developed from [REDACTED] through [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] . The uppercase forms [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] can represent either koppa or stigma. Frequent confusion between these two values in contemporary printing

8586-490: The short and a closed circle for the long /o/ . Some Ionian cities used a special letter [REDACTED] , alphabetically ordered behind Ω , for a sibilant sound in positions where other dialects had either ΣΣ or ΤΤ (e.g. τέͳαρες 'four', cf. normal spelling Ionic τέσσαρες vs. Attic τέτταρες ). This symbol later dropped out of alphabetic use, but survived in the form of the numeral symbol sampi (modern ϡ ). As an alphabetic character, it has been attested in

8692-414: The sound / w / may have changed to labiodental / v / in some environments. The F-shaped letter may have stood for the new / v / sound, while the special И-shaped form signified those positions where the old / w / sound was preserved. Digamma/wau remained in use in the system of Greek numerals attributed to Miletus , where it stood for the number 6, reflecting its original place in the sequence of

8798-417: The southern Aegean , notably Thera (Santorini), Melos and Anaphe . The "red" (western) type also lacks Phoenician-derived Ξ for /ks/ , but instead introduces a supplementary sign for that sound combination at the end of the alphabet, Χ . In addition, the red alphabet also introduced letters for the aspirates, Φ = /pʰ/ and Ψ = /kʰ/ . Note that the use of Χ in the "red" set corresponds to

8904-481: The standard form (either rounded or pointed, [REDACTED] ), there were forms as varied as [REDACTED] ( Gortyn ), [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] ( Thera ), [REDACTED] (Argos), [REDACTED] ( Melos ), [REDACTED] ( Corinth ), [REDACTED] ( Megara , Byzantium ), [REDACTED] ( Cyclades ). Κ , Ν , Ο and Τ displayed little variation and few or no differences from their classical forms. All letters could additionally occur in

9010-409: The system was slightly different: here, too, the same letter was used for /h/ and for a long vowel, but only in those cases where a long e-like sound had arisen through raising from older /aː/ , not – as other users of vocalic eta did – also for the older /ɛː/ inherited from proto-Greek. This probably means that while in the dialects of other eta users the old and new long e had already merged in

9116-434: The term episēmon not as a name proper for digamma/6 alone, but as a cover term for all three numeral letters. From Scaliger, the term found its way into modern academic usage in this new meaning, of referring to complementary numeral symbols standing outside the alphabetic sequence proper, in Greek and other similar scripts. In one remark in the context of a biblical commentary, the 4th century scholar Ammonius of Alexandria

9222-424: The two characters are distinguished in print, the top loop of stigma tends to be somewhat larger and to extend farther to the right than that of final sigma. The two characters are, however, always distinguishable from the context in modern usage, both in numeric notation and in text: the final form of sigma never occurs in numerals (the number 200 being always written with the medial sigma, σ), and in normal Greek text

9328-497: The ϛʹ sign itself is not available, the letter sequences στʹ or ΣΤʹ are used instead for the number 6. In western typesetting during the modern era, the numeral symbol was routinely represented by the same character as the stigma ligature (ϛ). In normal text, this ligature together with numerous others continued to be used widely until the early nineteenth century, following the style of earlier minuscule handwriting, but ligatures then gradually dropped out of use. The stigma ligature

9434-525: Was absent and represented by the hapax slaagid (place), which Italian linguist Alberto Manco has linked to a surviving local toponym. In phonology too, Oscan exhibited a number of clear differences from Latin: thus, Oscan 'p' in place of Latin 'qu' (Osc. pis , Lat. quis ) (compare the similar P-Celtic/Q-Celtic cleavage in the Celtic languages ); 'b' in place of Latin 'v'; medial 'f' in contrast to Latin 'b' or 'd' (Osc. mefiai , Lat. mediae ). Oscan

9540-454: Was already noted by some commentators in the eighteenth century. The ambiguity continues in modern fonts, many of which continue to have glyph similar to [REDACTED] for either koppa or stigma. The symbol has been called by a variety of different names, referring either to its alphabetic or its numeral function or both. Wau (variously rendered as vau , waw or similarly in English)

9646-486: Was among those that survived longest, but it too became obsolete in print after the mid-19th century. Today it is used only to represent the numeric digamma, and never to represent the sequence στ in text. Along with the other special numeric symbols koppa and sampi, numeric digamma/stigma normally has no distinction between uppercase and lowercase forms, (while other alphabetic letters can be used as numerals in both cases). Distinct uppercase versions were occasionally used in

9752-492: Was commonly found, and was particularly characteristic of some mainland Greek varieties including Attic and several "red" alphabets. The C-like "lunate" form of Σ that was later to become the standard form in late antiquity and Byzantine writing did not yet occur in the archaic alphabets. The letter Ι had two principal variants: the classical straight vertical line, and a crooked form with three, four or more angular strokes ( [REDACTED] [REDACTED] ). The crooked type

9858-552: Was concerned, but differed from the Ionic and classical alphabet in several other ways. Corinth used san ( Ϻ ) instead of Σ for /s/ , and retained qoppa ( Ϙ ) for what was presumably a retracted allophone of /k/ before back vowels. As described above, it also had an uncommon system for marking its [e] -sounds, with a Β -shaped letter [REDACTED] used for /e/ and /ɛː/ (classical Ε and Η respectively), and Ε used only for long close /eː/ (classical ΕΙ ). For

9964-582: Was conflated with the σ-τ ligature [REDACTED] . In modern print, a distinction is made between the letter in its original alphabetic role as a consonant sign, which is rendered as "Ϝ" or its modern lowercase variant "ϝ", and the numeric symbol, which is represented by "ϛ". In modern Greek , this is often replaced by the digraph στ . The sound /w/ existed in Mycenean Greek , as attested in Linear B and archaic Greek inscriptions using digamma. It

10070-461: Was created by breaking up the closed circle of the Omicron ( Ο ), initially near the side. The letter was subsequently turned upright and the edges curled outwards ( [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] ). The Dorian city of Knidos as well as a few Aegean islands, namely Paros , Thasos and Melos , chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for

10176-477: Was earlier ϝοῖνος /wóînos/ (compare Cretan Doric ibêna and Latin vīnum , which is the origin of English wine ). There have been editions of the Homeric epics where the wau was re-added, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but these have largely fallen out of favour. Aeolian was the dialect that kept the sound / w / longest. In discussions by ancient Greek grammarians of

10282-472: Was generally used only in those local scripts where the sound was still in use in the spoken dialect. During the archaic period, this includes most of mainland Greece (except Attica), as well as Euboea and Crete. In Athens and in Naxos it was apparently used only in the register of poetry. Elsewhere, i.e. in most of the Aegean islands and the East, the sound /w/ was already absent from the language. The shape of

10388-656: Was once a large Oscan settlement. Oscan had much in common with Latin , though there are also many striking differences, and many common word-groups in Latin were absent or represented by entirely different forms. For example, Latin volo , velle , volui , and other such forms from the Proto-Indo-European root *welh₁- ('to will') were represented by words derived from *ǵʰer- ('to desire'): Oscan herest ('(s)he shall want, (s)he shall desire', German cognate 'begehren', Dutch 'begeren', English cognate 'yearn') as opposed to Latin volent (id.). Latin locus (place)

10494-526: Was originally a closed rectangular shape [REDACTED] and developed several variants with different numbers of arrangements of connecting bars between the two outer stems. The early shape of Ε was typically [REDACTED] , with the arms diagonal and the stem descending below the lowest arm; it developed to the modern orthogonal form Ε during the archaic era. An analogous change was observed with Ϝ , which changed from [REDACTED] to either [REDACTED] or Ϝ . Early forms of Μ typically had

10600-458: Was placed near the end of the Greek alphabet. Digamma or wau is in turn the ancestor of the Latin letter F . As an alphabetic letter, it is attested in archaic and dialectal ancient Greek inscriptions until the classical period. The shape of the letter went through a development from [REDACTED] through [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] , [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] , which at that point

10706-413: Was the older form, and remained common in those varieties where it could not be confused with sigma because sigma was absent in favour of san. The letters Γ and Λ had multiple different forms that could often be confused with each other, as both are just an angle shape that could occur in various positions. C-like forms of Γ (either pointed or rounded) were common in many mainland varieties and in

10812-547: Was through this variant that the Greek alphabet was transmitted to Italy, where it gave rise to the Old Italic alphabets , including Etruscan and ultimately the Latin alphabet . Some of the distinctive features of the Latin as compared to the standard Greek script are already present in the Euboean model. The Euboean alphabet belonged to the "western" ("red") type. It had Χ representing /ks/ and Ψ for /kʰ/ . Like most early variants it also lacked Ω , and used Η for

10918-540: Was thus, in the /h/ -less dialects, its natural acrophonic value. Early psilotic dialects include eastern Ionic Greek , the Aeolic Greek of Lesbos , as well as the Doric Greek of Crete and Elis . The distribution of vocalic Η and Ε differs further between dialects, because the Greek language had a system of three distinct e -like phonemes : the long open-mid /ɛː/ (classical spelling η ),

11024-426: Was used for /u/ as well as historical long */oː/, which had undergone a sound shift in Oscan to become ~[uː]. Í was used to denote a higher-mid [ẹ] . [REDACTED] The Z of the native alphabet is pronounced [ts] . Doubling of vowels was used to denote length but a long I is written IÍ . Oscan written with the Greek alphabet was identical to the standard alphabet with the addition of two letters: one for

11130-514: Was used for the consonant /h/ . Among the characteristics of Athens writing were also some variant local letter forms, some of which were shared with the neighbouring (but otherwise "red") alphabet of Euboea : a form of Λ that resembled a Latin L ( [REDACTED] ) and a form of Σ that resembled a Latin S ( [REDACTED] ). By the late 5th century, use of elements of the Ionic alphabet side by side with this traditional local alphabet had become commonplace in private writing, and in 403 BC,

11236-523: Was used in Argos until the end of the 6th century, in Sicyon until c. 500, in Corinth until the first half of the 5th century, and in Crete for some time longer. Sicyon kept the sign as a local emblem on its coins. The archaic letter Koppa or Qoppa ( Ϙ ), used for the back allophone of /k/ before back vowels [o, u], was originally common to most epichoric alphabets. It began to drop out of use from

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