Greek ligatures
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The sample shows the -os ligature in the middle of the second line (in the word μέθοδος), the kai ligature below it in the third line, and the -ou- ligature right below that in the fourth line, along many others.
Greek ligatures are graphic combinations of the letters of the Greek alphabet that were used in medieval handwritten Greek and in early printing. Ligatures were used in the cursive writing style and very extensively in later minuscule writing. In early printed Greek after c.1500, some ligatures continued to be used, although their use declined during the 17th and 18th centuries and became mostly obsolete in modern typesetting. Among the ligatures that remained in use the longest are the ligature Ȣ for ου (resembling a V above an O); the ligature ϗ for καὶ 'and' (resembling a κ with a downward stroke on the right); and the ligature ϛ for στ, called stigma. In the modern computer encoding standard Unicode, these three combinations have been given separate codepoints, since they are still occasionally used. Another ligature that is relatively frequent in early modern printing is a ligature of Ο with ς (a small sigma inside a capital omicron) for a terminal ος.
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[edit] List of ligatures
Historical ligatures exist for the following combinations, among others:[1][2]
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* αῖ
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[edit] Example images
 -εῖ- |
 -γερ- |
 καὶ |
 -μω- |
 -ος |
 οὖν |
 φησὶ |
 -έστ- |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The Philokalia Package, for LaTeX
- ^ Carl Faulmann, Das Buch der Schrift: Schriftzeichen und Alphabete aller Zeiten und Völker, Vienna 1880, p.172-176.
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