Diacritics (Greek alphabet)
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In the Greek alphabet, vowels can carry diacritics, namely accents and breathings. The accents are the acute accent (´), the grave accent (`), and the circumflex (῀). They mark the stressed syllable. The breathings are the spiritus asper (῾), marking an [h] sound at the beginning of a word, and the spiritus lenis (᾽), marking the absence of an [h] sound at the beginning of a word. The letter rho, although not a vowel, when at the beginning of a word, always carries a spiritus asper. A double rho, although always in the middle of a word, was originally written with a spiritus lenis on the first rho and a spiritus asper on the second one; these are now omitted altogether. A related mark is the diaeresis marking the separate pronunciation of vowel sounds.
[edit] Position on letters
The diacritics are written above lower-case letters and at the upper left of capital letters. In the case of a diphthong, the second vowel takes the diacritics. A breathing diacritic is written to the left of an acute or grave accent but below a circumflex. Accents are written above a diaeresis, or between the two dots in the case of the acute or grave. When a word is written entirely in capital letters, diacritics are never used; the word Ἢ ("or") is an exception to this rule because of the need to distinguish it from the nominative feminine article Η. Diacritics can be found above capital letters in medieval texts. The diaeresis is always written.
[edit] Historical Development
The original Greek alphabet did not have any diacritics. The Greek alphabet is attested since the 8th century BC. Until 403 BC, variations of the Greek alphabet—which used capitals exclusively—were used in different cities and areas. From 403 on, the Athenians decided to employ a version of the Ionian alphabet. With the spread of Koine Greek, a continuation of the Attic dialect, the Ionic alphabet superseded more or less quickly the other alphabets, called "epichoric". The Ionian alphabet, however, was also made up only of capitals.
During the Hellenistic period, (3rd century BC), Aristophanes of Byzantium "invented" the "breathings" — marks of aspiration (the aspiration however being already noted on certain inscriptions, not by means of diacritics but by regular letters or modified letters) and the accents, of which the use started to spread, to become standard in the Middle Ages. It wasn’t until the 2nd century AD that the accents and breathings appeared sporadically in the papyruses. The need for the diacritics arose from the gradual divergence between spelling and pronunciation.
In the 9th century, the diacritics became of systematic use (together with punctuation and ligatures), and older manuscripts were corrected accordingly. Printing accelerated the process of standardization.
In 1982, the Greek parliament enacted a reform of the accent system by instituting the "monotonic" system: breathings were abolished and the various accents were replaced by a single accent, governed by simplified rules; the diaeresis was retained.
