Sampi

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

Sampi (ϡ) is an obsolete letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numeric value of 900 when used as a mathematical character (see Greek numerals).

Another description formerly used for this archaic letter was disigma (double sigma), because of the phoneme it represented, /ss/ (or /ks/, the latter phoneme eventually being spelled always with xi).

The origin of sampi is uncertain; it may derive from the older letter san, in which case "sampi" would mean san + pi. However, its place at the end of the alphabet, with numerical value 900, suggests that it was a later Greek invention. If so, then "sampi" may mean (hō)s an pei, "as if pi".

Sampi is mostly represented in modern writing by a glyph resembling a π slanted rightwards, and often with a long downstroke. Although the letter is not used at all in Modern Greek words, its usage as the number 900 is still occasionally seen today. In ancient epigraphy, there were other shapes, including one resembling an upright T, as seen on ancient Roman coins. The Unicode standard of modern computer encoding has introduced two sets of codepoints for these two usages, both with an uppercase and lowercase variant: a Π-shaped numeric U+03E0/U+03E1 (Ϡ/ϡ ), and a T-shaped alphabetic U+0372/U+0373 (Ͳ/ͳ, ).

Sampi has appeared, albeit rarely, in transcriptions of German ß into the Greek alphabet.

See also

San (letter)

External links

• The Greek letter Sampi
• Sampi (alphabetic use)
• Sampi (numeric use)

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