Digamma

Digamma uc lc.svg
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
Other characters
Digamma uc lc.svg Digamma Greek Stigma.svg Stigma
Greek Heta.svg Heta Greek San.svg San
Qoppa Q-and-Z-shaped.svg Qoppa Greek Sampi 2 shapes.svg Sampi
Greek diacritics

Digamma (uppercase Ϝ, lowercase ϝ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as a Greek numeral.

The letter had the phonetic value of a voiced labial-velar approximant /w/.  It was originally called ϝαῦ wau.[1] It was later called dígamma (δίγαμμα "double gamma") because of its shape.  It is attested in archaic and dialectal ancient Greek inscriptions, and is occasionally used as a symbol in later Greek mathematical texts. 

Digamma, like Upsilon, derives from the Phoenician letter Waw, and in its turn gave rise to the Roman letter F.

Contents

The sound /w/ in Greek

The letter digamma as it appears in four fonts.

Mycenaean Greek

The sound /w/ existed in Mycenean Greek, as attested in Linear B and archaic Greek inscriptions using digamma.  It is also confirmed by the Hittite name of Troy, Wilusa, corresponding to the Greek name *Wilion.

Classical Greek

Ancient Greek ceramic fragment depicting a horse with rider. The inscription reads [...]Σ ϜΑΝΑΚΤΣ ([...]s wanakts), corresponding to the word ἄναξ anax ("king") in Attic employing the archaic letter Digamma for w.

The sound was lost at various times in various dialects, mostly before the classical period. 

In Ionic, [w] had probably disappeared before Homer's epics were written down (7th century BC), but its former presence can be detected in many cases because its omission left the meter defective. For example, the words ἄναξ (king), found in the Iliad, which would originally have been ϝάναξ [wanaks], and οἶνος (wine) are sometimes used in the meter where a word starting with a consonant would be expected. Further evidence coupled with cognate-analysis shows that οἶνος was earlier ϝοῖνος [woinos][2] (cf. Cretan Doric ibêna, cf. Latin vīnum and English "wine"). For some time, word-initial /w-/ remained foreign to Greek phonology, and was dropped in loanwords, compare the name of Italy (Italia from Oscan Viteliu *Ϝιτελιυ) or of the Veneti (Greek Ἐνετοί - Enetoi). By the 2nd century BC, the phoneme was once again registered, compare for example the spelling of Οὐάτεις for vates.

"Pamphylian digamma"

In some local (epichoric) alphabets, a variant glyph of the letter digamma existed that resembled modern Cyrillic И. In one local alphabet, that of Pamphylia, this variant form existed side by side with standard digamma as two distinct letters. It has been surmised that in this dialect the sound /w/ may have changed to labiodental [v] in some environments. The F-shaped letter may have stood for the new [v] sound, while the special И-shaped form signified those positions where the old [w] sound was preserved.[3]

Tsakonian Greek

Digamma survives as β /v/ in a single word of Tsakonian, the only dialect of Modern Greek not descended from Koine Greek:

Oitylo

The city of Oitylo was called Vitylo before the Attic-Ionic form, Οἴτυλος[4] /oĭtylos/, was introduced. The diphthong was probably an attempt to render the foreign sound: [oi] = [wi]. In Modern Greek this became Οίτυλο /'itilo/.[5]

Numeral

As Semitic  Waw had the numeric value six, the digamma was used as the Greek numeral six.  In ancient usage, the numeral had the same form as the letter digamma. However, in medieval and modern usage, the numeral has normally been written in the graphic form of a stigma (Ϛ, ϛ), which historically is completely distinct from digamma; it is a medieval ligature of sigma and tau.  To add to the confusion, in modern times, the sequence στ or ΣΤ is sometimes used instead of the stigma symbol.

Unicode representation

In Unicode digamma has code uppercase U+03DC Ϝ, lowercase U+03DD ϝ [6].

In July 2006, another pair of the uppercase and lowercase digamma with bold typeface, were added to the Unicode standard version 5.0 and have codes U+1D7CA and U+1D7CB. Their intended use is as mathematical symbols, not regular text.

The И-shaped "Pamphylian digamma" was additionally encoded in Unicode version 5.1 and has code U+0376 (uppercase) and U+0377 (lowercase) (Ͷ/ͷ inline).

Notes

  1. ↑ Cf. Grammatici Latini (ed. Keil), 7.148.
  2. ↑ LSJ, οἶνος: Ϝοῖνος Leg.Gort. col X.39
  3. ↑ Nick Nicolas: Proposal to add Greek epigraphical letters to the UCS. Technical report, Unicode Consortium, 2005. Citing C. Brixhe, Le dialecte grec de Pamphylie. Documents et grammaire. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1976.
  4. ↑ Georg Autenrieth, A Homeric Lexicon, Οἴτυλος. Found in Homer, Iliad 2:585.
  5. ↑ Mani: a guide and history. Itilo
  6. ↑ Unicode Character 'GREEK LETTER DIGAMMA' (U+03DC)

References

External links