Digraphs and Diphthongs
A digraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters in sequence. The orthography of Greek includes several digraphs, including various pairs of vowel letters that used to be pronounced as diphthongs but have been shortened to monophthongs in pronunciation. Many of these are characteristic developments of modern Greek, but some were already present in Classical Greek. None of them is regarded as a letter of the alphabet.
During the Byzantine period, it became customary to write the silent iota in digraphs as an iota subscript.
| Letters | Transliteration | Pronunciation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Greek |
Modern Greek |
Classical Ancient Greek |
Modern Greek |
|
| αι, αι | ai | e | ||
| αι, ᾳ | āi | a | ||
| ει, ει | ei | i | ||
| ηι, ῃ | ēi | i | ||
| οι, οι | oi | i | ||
| υι, υι | ui | i | * | |
| ωι, ῳ | ōi | o | ||
| αυ, αυ | au | av, af | before vowel or voiced consonant; otherwise |
|
| αυ, αυ | āu | av, af | before vowel or voiced consonant; otherwise |
|
| ευ, ευ | eu | ev, ef | before vowel or voiced consonant; otherwise |
|
| ηυ, ηυ | ēu | iv, if | before vowel or voiced consonant; otherwise |
|
| ου, ου | ou | u | earlier |
|
| ωυ, ωυ | ōü | oi | ** | |
| γγ, γγ | ng | ng, ny, g, y, ngh | in formal registers, but often reduced to in informal speech; also pronounced in some words (e.g. εγγενής, έγγραφο, συγγραφέας)*** |
|
| γκ, γκ | nk | g, y, ng, ny | word-initially; otherwise, often reduced to in informal speech*** |
|
| γξ, γξ | nx | nx | ||
| γχ, γχ | nch | nch, nkh | *** | |
| μπ, μπ | mp | b, mb | word-initially and in some loanwords; otherwise, often reduced to in informal speech |
|
| ντ, ντ | nt | d, nd | word-initially and in some loanwords; otherwise, often reduced to in informal speech |
|
* The diphthong υι was monophthongized to in Classical Attic Greek, but survives in some other contemporary dialects and in early Koine.
** The diphthong ωυ was found in Ionic and in certain Hebrew transcriptions in the Greek Bible, but it did not occur in Attic, and was gradually lost in Koine. Where ωυ was atticized, it was often split into two separate syllables, hence the Latin transcription ōy. Perhaps the clearest example of this is the Biblical Greek name Μωυσῆς (Moses), which was atticized as Μωϋσῆς, then adapted to early Christian Latin as Mōysēs, from where it became Spanish Moisés, French Moïse, etc. The modern Greek form is Μωυσής, whereas the modern Latin Vulgate form is Mōsēs.
***The velars, and are palatalized to, and respectively before the close and mid front vowels and .
It is discussed among scholars whether the velar nasal (ἄγμα, agma) should be regarded as an allophone of /n/ or a phoneme in its own right in Greek.
Read more about this topic: Greek Orthography