 |
|||
| Greek alphabet | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Αα | Alpha | Νν | Nu |
| Ββ | Beta | Ξξ | Xi |
| Γγ | Gamma | Οο | Omicron |
| Δδ | Delta | Ππ | Pi |
| Εε | Epsilon | Ρρ | Rho |
| Ζζ | Zeta | Σσς | Sigma |
| Ηη | Eta | Ττ | Tau |
| Θθ | Theta | Υυ | Upsilon |
| Ιι | Iota | Φφ | Phi |
| Κκ | Kappa | Χχ | Chi |
| Λλ | Lambda | Ψψ | Psi |
| Μμ | Mu | Ωω | Omega |
| Obsolete letters | |||
 |
Digamma | |
Qoppa |
 |
San |  |
Sampi |
| Other characters | |||
 |
Stigma |  |
Sho |
 |
Heta | ||
|
|
|||
| Greek diacritics | |||
Qoppa or Koppa (Ϙ) is a letter that was used in early forms of the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician qoph. In Phoenician, qoph was pronounced as a uvular stop (IPA: [q]); in Greek, which lacked such a sound, it was instead used for /k/ before back vowels (Ο, Υ and Ω). As the sound /k/ then had two redundant spellings, qoppa was eventually replaced by kappa (Κ). Qoppa remained in use as a letter in some Doric regions into the 5th century BC.[1]
Contents |
History and use
Like all Greek letters, qoppa was also used as a numeral, and had the value of 90. It has continued to be used in this function into modern times, though its shape has changed over time from a Q-like one () one to a Z-like one (
)
The Qoppa was used as a symbol for the city of Corinth, which had the early spelling of Ϙόρινθος. Qoppa is also the source of the Latin letter Q and the archaic Cyrillic numeral koppa (Ҁ).
In the Unicode computer encoding standard, there are two pairs of codepoints to represent Qoppa: U+03D8/U+03D9 ("Greek Letter Archaic Koppa" and "Greek Small Letter Archaic Koppa", Ϙϙ), intended for representing the epigraphic Q-like glyph, and U+03DE/U+03DF ("Greek Letter Koppa" and "Greek Small Letter Koppa", Ϟϟ), intended for the numeric Z-like glyphs.[2]
See also
.png)
References
- ^ Woodard, Roger D. (1997). Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105206.
- ^ Note that computer fonts used in browsers may show these codepoints differently.
Further reading
- Powell, Barry B. (1991). Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521371570.
- Threatte, Leslie (1980). The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3110073447.
- Woodard, Roger D. (1997). Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195105206.
External links
 |
This Ancient Greece-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This writing system-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
