Romanization of Greek is the transliteration (letter-mapping) or transcription (sound-mapping) of text from the Greek alphabet into the Latin alphabet.

History The conventions for writing and romanizing Ancient Greek and Modern Greek differ markedly. The sound of the English letter B () was written as in ancient Greek but is now written as the digraph , while the modern sounds like the English letter V () instead. The Greek name became Johannes in Latin and then John in English, but in modern Greek has become ; this might be written as Yannis, Jani, Ioannis, Yiannis, or Giannis, but not Giannes or Giannēs as it would be for ancient Greek. The word might variously appear as Hagiοs, Agios, Aghios, or Ayios, or simply be translated as "Holy" or "Saint" in English forms of Greek placenames.Dubin, Marc. Rough Guide to the Dodecanese & East Aegean Islands, . Rough Guides (London), 2002.

Traditional English renderings of Greek names originated from Roman systems established in antiquity. The Roman alphabet itself was a form of the Cumaean alphabet derived from the Euboean script that valued as and as and used variant forms of and that became L and S.Jeffery, Lilian H. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, . Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1961. When this script was used to write the classical Greek alphabet, ⟨κ⟩ was replaced with ⟨c⟩, ⟨αι⟩ and ⟨οι⟩ became ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩, and ⟨ει⟩ and ⟨ου⟩ were simplified to ⟨i⟩ (more rarely—corresponding to an earlier pronunciation—⟨e⟩) and ⟨u⟩. Aspirated consonants like ⟨θ⟩, ⟨φ⟩, initial-⟨ρ⟩, and ⟨χ⟩ simply wrote out the sound: ⟨th⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨rh⟩, and ⟨ch⟩. Because English orthography has changed so much from the original Greek, modern scholarly transliteration now usually renders ⟨κ⟩ as ⟨k⟩ and the diphthongs ⟨αι, οι, ει, ου⟩ as ⟨ai, oi, ei, ou⟩.

"Greeklish" has also spread within Greece itself, owing to the rapid spread of digital telephony from cultures using the Latin alphabet. Since Greek typefaces and fonts are not always supported or robust, Greek email and chatting has adopted a variety of formats for rendering Greek and Greek shorthand using Latin letters. Examples include "8elo" and "thelw" for , "3ava" for , and "yuxi" for .

Owing to the difficulties encountered in transliterating and transcribing both ancient and modern Greek into the Latin alphabet, a number of regulatory bodies have been established. The Hellenic Organization for Standardization (ELOT), in cooperation with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), released a system in 1983 which has since been formally adopted by the United Nations, the United Kingdom and United States.

Tables The following tables list several romanization schemes from the Greek alphabet to modern English. Note, however, that the ELOT, UN, and ISO formats for Modern Greek intend themselves as translingual and may be applied in any language using the Latin alphabet.

Ancient Greek The American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization scheme employs its "Ancient or Medieval Greek" system for all works and authors up to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, although Byzantine Greek was pronounced distinctly and some have considered "Modern" Greek to have begun as early as the 12th century."Greece" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, , . 1880.

For treatment of polytonic Greek letters—for example, —see also the section on romanizing Greek diacritical marks below.

Greek Classical (2010) a a A ae ai AI b b B g g G d d D e e E e or i ei EI z z Z e ē H th th Q i i I c k K l l L m m M n n N x x C o o O oe oi OI u ou OU o p p P R r r s s S / S1 S / S2 / J t t T y y U ui or yi ui UI ph ph F ch ch X ps ps Y o ō W

Modern Greek ELOT approved in 1982 the ELOT 743 standard, revised in 2001, whose Type 2 () transcription scheme has been adopted by the Greek and Cypriot governments as standard for romanization of names on Greek and Cypriot passports. It also comprised a Type 1 () transliteration table, which was extensively modified in the second edition of the standard.

International version of ELOT 743, with an English language standard document, was approved by the UN (V/19, 1987) and the British and American governments. In 1997 the ISO approved its version, ISO 843, with a different Type 1 transliteration system, which was adopted four years later by ELOT itself, while the U.N. did not update its version. So the transcriptions of Modern Greek into Latin letters used by ELOT, UN and ISO are essentially equivalent, while there remain minor differences in how they approach reversible transliteration.

The American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization scheme employs its "Modern Greek" system for all works and authors following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

In the table below, the special rules for vowel combinations () only apply when these letters function as digraphs. There are also words where the same letters stand side by side incidentally but represent separate vowels. In these cases each of the two letters is transcribed separately according to the normal rules for single letters. Such cases are marked in Greek orthography by either having an accent on the first rather than the second vowel letter, or by having a diaeresis over the second letter. For treatment of accents and diaereses—for example, —also see the section on romanizing Greek diacritical marks below.

Greek IPA Transcription Transliteration Notes (1962) (1982; 2001) (1987) (1997) (2001) (2010) [a] a a a a a a [e̞] e ai ai ai ai ai [av] av av av̱ au au au before vowels or voiced consonants[af] af af before voiceless consonants and word-finally [v] v v v v v v [ɣ] g g g g g g [ʝ] y before front vowels [ŋɡ],[ɲɟ] ng ng ṉg gg gg ng [g], [ɟ] g gk gk gk gk gk word-initially[ŋɡ],[ɲɟ] ng ng word-medially [ŋks] nx nx ṉx gx gx nx [ŋx],[ɲç] nkh nch ṉch gch gch nch [ð] dh d d d d d [d] d in the combination [e̞] e e e e e e [i] i ei ei ei ei ei [e̞v] ev ev ev̱ eu eu eu before vowels or voiced consonants[e̞f] ef ef before voiceless consonants and word-finally [z] z z z z z z [i] i i i̱ ī īi¯ ē [iv] iv iv i̱v̱ īu īui¯u ēu before vowels or voiced consonants[if] if i̱f̱ before voiceless consonants and word-finally [θ] th th th th th th [i] i i i i i i [k], [c] k k k k k k [l] l l l l l l [m] m m m m m m [b] b b b mp mp b word-initially[mb] mb mp mp mp word-medially [n] n n n n n n [d] d nt nt nt nt ḏd_ word-initially[nd] nd nt word-medially and word-finally[nd(z)] nt in the combination [ks] x x x x x x [o̞] o o o o o o [i] i oi oi oi oi oi [u] ou ou ou ou ou ou [p] p p p p p p [r] r r r r r r [s] s s s s s s ς (σίγμα τελικό - final sigma) is used as the final letter in a word. [t] t t t t t t [i] i y y y y y [i] i yi yi yi yi ui [f] f f f f f ph [x], [ç] kh ch ch ch ch ch [ps] ps ps ps ps ps ps [o̞] o o o̱ ō ōo¯ ō [oi] oy oy o̱y ōy ōyo¯y ōu

Diacritical marks

The traditional polytonic orthography of Greek uses several distinct diacritical marks to render what was originally the pitch accent of Ancient Greek and the presence or absence of word-initial . In 1982, monotonic orthography was officially introduced for modern Greek. The only diacritics that remain are the acute accent (indicating stress) and the diaeresis (indicating that two consecutive vowels should not be combined).

When a Greek diphthong is accented, the accent mark is placed over the second letter of the pair. This means that an accent over the first letter of the pair indicates vowels which should be taken (and romanized) separately. Although the second vowel is not marked with a superfluous diaeresis in Greek, the first-edition ELOT 743 and the UN systems place a diaeresis on the Latin vowel for the sake of clarity. [Bámpīs Koutroúlīs, Babis G. Kutrulis]. [Metatropī́ tou ellīnikoú alfavī́tou me latinikoús charaktī́res (ELOT 743), "Conversion of the Greek alphabet to Latin characters (ELOT 743)"]. Accessed 3 October 2014. 2008. Department of Technical Co-operation for Development. "Fifth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names: Montreal, 18—31 August 1987", "Report of the Conference", . United Nations (New York), 1987.

+Diacritical marks Greek Ancient Modern Name Classical (2010) These marks are placed after the letter so that, e.g., is written E)N and is written TW=|. (2001) (1987) BGN/PCGN United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Romanization Systems and Policies : "Romanization System for Greek". 1996. Accessed 2 October 2014.(1996) (1997) (2010) / ´In systems where the in , and is romanized as a consonant v or f, the stressed diphthongs , and are romanized with the accent mark over the initial vowel. This should be distinguished from Greek , and , which would be romanized as separate letters and not as diphthongs: áÿ, éÿ, and íÿ or ī́ÿ or í̱ÿ. accentacute accent \ ` ´ ` grave accent ( h rough breathing ) ' ' coronissmooth breathing = ˆ ´ ˆ circumflex The diaeresis mark indicates that adjacent vowels should be taken separately and not as a single diphthong. + diaeresis ¸ ¸ iota subscript

Apart from the diacritical marks native to Greek itself or used to romanize its characters, linguists also regularly mark vowel length with macrons () marking long vowels and rounded breves () marking short vowels. Where these are romanized, it is common to mark the long vowels with macrons over the Latin letters and to leave the short vowels unmarked; such macrons should not be confused or conflated with those used by some systems to mark eta and omega as distinct from epsilon, iota, and omicron.

Numerals

Greece's early Attic numerals were based on a small sample of letters (including heta) arranged in multiples of 5 and 10, likely forming the inspiration for the later Etruscan and Roman numerals.

This early system was replaced by Greek numerals which employed the entire alphabet, including the nonstandard letters digamma, stigma, or sigma-tau (placed between epsilon and zeta), koppa (placed between pi and rho), and sampi (placed after omega). As revised in 2001, ELOT 743 provides for the uncommon characters to be given (in Greek) as $ for stigma, + for koppa, and / for sampi. These symbols are not given lower-case equivalents. When used as numbers, the letters are used in combination with the upper keraia numeral sign ⟨ʹ⟩ to denote numbers from 1 to 900 and in combination with the lower keraia ⟨͵⟩ to denote multiples of 1000. (For a full table of the signs and their values, see Greek numerals.)

These values are traditionally romanized as Roman numerals, so that would be translated as Alexander III of Macedon and transliterated as Aléxandros III o Makedṓn rather than Aléxandros G''' or Aléxandros 3. Greek laws and other official documents of Greece which employ these numerals, however, are to be formally romanized using "decimal" Arabic numerals.

Punctuation marks

Ancient Greek text did not mark word division with spaces or interpuncts, instead running the words together (scripta continua). In the Hellenistic period, a variety of symbols arose for punctuation or editorial marking; such punctuation (or the lack thereof) are variously romanized, inserted, or ignored in different modern editions.

Modern Greek punctuation generally follows French with the notable exception of Greek's use of a separate question mark, the erotimatiko, which is shaped like the Latinate semicolon. Greek punctuation which has been given formal romanizations include:

+Punctuation marks Greek (2001) (1997) Name ? ? (erotimatiko) . . full stop(teleia) ; ; (ano teleia) : : colon(ano kato teleia) , , comma(komma) ! exclamation point(thavmastiko) ' ' apostrophe(apostrofos) ͜ - - papyrological hyphen(enotikon)

Uncommon letters