![]() ![]() The same is generally true for works dealing with epigraphy, paleography or other philological contexts where adherence to original historical spellings and linguistic correctness is considered important.ĭifferent conventions exist for the treatment of subscript/adscript iota with uppercase letters. In some modern editions of classical texts, the original pronunciation of long diphthongs is represented by the use of iota adscript, with accents and breathing marks placed on the first vowel. The iota subscript is today considered an obligatory feature in the spelling of ancient Greek, but its usage is subject to some variation. ![]() The rare long diphthong ῡι might logically have been treated the same way, and the works of Eustathius of Thessalonica provide an instance of υ with iota subscript (in the word ὑπόγυͅον), but this never became the convention (the same word being spelled by other writers as ὑπόγυιον or ὑπόγυον). Besides these it also occurs in the roots of certain words and names, for instance ᾠδή, ode (and its derivatives: ᾠδεῖον, odeon τραγῳδία, tragedy etc.) ᾍδης, Hades Θρᾴκη, Thrace. The iota subscript occurs most frequently in certain inflectional affixes of ancient Greek, especially in the dative endings of many nominal forms (e.g. Usage ĭifferent styles of treating mute iota with capital letters In some English works these are referred to as "improper diphthongs". In the medieval period, these spellings were replaced by spellings with an iota subscript, to mark former diphthongs which were no longer pronounced. From the classical period onwards, they changed to simple vowels (monophthongs), but sometimes continued to be written as diphthongs. They existed in the Greek language up into the classical period. The Greek terms, transliterated according to their modern pronunciation as ypogegrammeni and prosgegrammeni respectively, were also chosen for use in character names in the computer encoding standard Unicode.Īs a phonological phenomenon, the original diphthongs denoted by ⟨ ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ⟩ are traditionally called "long diphthongs". The Greek names are grammatically feminine participle forms because in medieval Greek the name of the letter iota, to which they implicitly refer, was sometimes construed as a feminine noun (unlike in classical and in modern Greek, where it is neuter). Analogously, the adscript is called προσγεγραμμένη ( prosgegramménē), from the verb προσγράφω ( prosgráphō), "to write next (to something), to add in writing". In Greek, the subscript is called ὑπογεγραμμένη ( hupogegramménē), the perfect passive participle form of the verb ὑπογράφω ( hupográphō), "to write below". There are Unicode codepoints for all Greek uppercase vowels with iota adscript (for example, U+1FBC ᾼ GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH PROSGEGRAMMENI), allowing for easy implementation of that recommendation in digital environments. In digital environments, and for linguistic reasons also in all other environments, the representation as a slightly reduced iota is recommended. ![]() In uppercase-only environments, it is represented again either as slightly reduced iota (smaller than regular lowercase iota), or as a full-sized uppercase Iota. In the latter case, it can be recognized as iota adscript by the fact that it never carries any diacritics (breathing marks, accents). ![]() In mixed-case environments, it is represented either as a slightly reduced iota (smaller than regular lowercase iota), or as a full-sized lowercase iota. The alternative practice, of writing the mute iota not under, but next to the preceding vowel, is known as iota adscript. The iota subscript was invented by Byzantine philologists in the 12th century AD as an editorial symbol marking the places where such spelling variation occurred. ĭuring the Roman and Byzantine eras, the iota, now mute, was sometimes still written as a normal letter but was often simply left out. The offglide was gradually lost in pronunciation, a process that started already during the classical period and continued during the Hellenistic period, with the result that, from approximately the 1st century BC onwards, the former long diphthongs were no longer distinguished in pronunciation from the simple long vowels (long monophthongs) η, ω, ᾱ respectively. Such diphthongs (i.e., ηι, ωι, ᾱι)-phonologically distinct from the corresponding normal or "short" diphthongs (i.e., ει, οι, ᾰι )-were a feature of ancient Greek in the pre-classical and classical eras. It represents the former presence of an offglide after the vowel, forming a so‐called "long diphthong". It can occur with the vowel letters eta ⟨ η⟩, omega ⟨ω⟩, and alpha ⟨ α⟩. The iota subscript is a diacritic mark in the Greek alphabet shaped like a small vertical stroke or miniature iota ⟨ ι⟩ placed below the letter. Iota subscripts in the word ᾠδῇ, (" ode", dative) ![]()
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