Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters. In order they are alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi and omega.

How do the Greek letters work?

The Greek alphabet is the writing system of the Greek language and, by way of Latin and Cyrillic, an ancestor of most alphabets used in Europe today. It was among the first alphabets to give vowels their own letters, which is why alpha, epsilon, eta, iota, omicron, upsilon and omega exist as a set of seven.

Each letter has an uppercase and a lowercase form, a name and a sound. Outside Greece, you meet the letters in four places: as maths and science symbols (π, Σ, Δ, λ), as the names of fraternities and sororities, in Bible studies and classics, and in lettering and tattoos. This page is the starting point for all four. It treats the letters as characters and symbols; it does not teach the Greek language.

Where did the Greek alphabet come from?

The Greeks took the Phoenician alphabet, which wrote only consonants, and repurposed the letters for sounds Greek needed. Phoenician signs for consonants Greek did not use became vowels: aleph turned into alpha, for example. This happened around the 8th century BCE, and local Greek cities used different versions for some time. Athens officially adopted the Ionic alphabet, the 24-letter form used today, in 403 BCE; it is sometimes called the Euclidean alphabet, after Eucleides, the archon in office that year. Latin and Cyrillic descend from Greek forms, which is why so many capitals match.

Letter names and sounds changed over time. Ancient Greek distinguished long and short vowels and had aspirated consonants, while in modern Greek several vowels (eta, iota, upsilon) merged into one sound, and beta, for example, is now pronounced like “v”. The pronunciation page lays out the ancient and modern readings side by side.

Which Greek capitals look like Latin letters?

Fourteen uppercase Greek letters are the same shape as a Latin capital or close to it: Α Β Ε Ζ Η Ι Κ Μ Ν Ο Ρ Τ Υ Χ. Computers treat each as a different character from its Latin lookalike, with a different code point, even when the glyphs match. This is useful to know when you copy a Greek letter into a name or a file: it will not sort, search or spell-check as the Latin letter does. The Unicode page lists the confusable pairs.

Lowercase is less alike. Some shapes mislead English readers: ν (nu) is not v, ρ (rho) is not p, η (eta) is not n and χ (chi) is not x.

How do I copy and print the letters?

Each button copies one character, so what you paste is plain Unicode text that works in documents, spreadsheets, chat and design tools. If a paste shows an empty box, the font in that app has no Greek glyphs; switch to a font that does (most system fonts have them). Letters in the table are real Greek characters, not images.

The “Print the Greek alphabet chart” button above the grid prints a one-page reference sheet: all 24 letters in order, uppercase and lowercase, with each name and its English transliteration. It runs in your browser and uses your default paper size, A4 or Letter.

The table also gives the classical numeral value of each letter. In the Greek numeral system, letters stood for numbers, with a small mark after them to show they were numerals. Modern Greek uses Arabic digits for everyday counting; the letter numerals survive mainly in numbered lists and in classical texts.

Where to start

Pick the page that matches what you need the letters for.

• Formulas and units: Greek letters in maths and science shows what each letter conventionally means in maths, physics, statistics, engineering, chemistry and finance, with notes where meanings vary by field.
• Typing them: How to type Greek letters covers keyboards, shortcuts and special-character tools for Windows, Mac, phones and common apps, and says what we have and have not tested.
• Code and markup: Greek alphabet Unicode gives code points, HTML entities and the lookalike characters to avoid; LaTeX Greek letters lists the LaTeX command for every letter, including the variant forms.
• Your own text in Greek: Greek letter generator turns Latin text into real Greek letters and shows how look-alike text differs.
• Fraternities and sororities: Greek life letters composes letter strings and shows how chapter names run from Alpha to Alpha Alpha. It holds letters only, no organisation data.
• Saying the letters: Greek alphabet pronunciation sets modern, classical and English readings side by side in IPA.
• Numbers: Greek numerals converts 1 to 9999 to Greek numerals and back, with stigma, koppa and sampi.
• Ink: Greek letter tattoos covers popular letters, spelling real words, final sigma and look-alike mistakes.
• One letter in depth: sigma, delta, pi, omega and mu each have their own page with every form, code, typing method and common mistake.

Symbols that are not letters, like arrows, stars and hearts, are in the text symbols collection, with maths signs at math symbols and units, constants and chemistry arrows at science symbols, and the Latin alphabet in dozens of decorative styles is at fancy letters A to Z.

Sources and notes

Letter names, order and code points follow the Unicode Standard’s Greek and Coptic chart (U+0370 to U+03FF). The numeral values follow the standard Greek (Milesian) numeral system; the archaic letters stigma, koppa and sampi are covered in the Wikipedia overview below. The sound values are simplified phonemic transcriptions and are explained on the pronunciation page.

• Unicode Greek and Coptic code chart (PDF)
• Wikipedia, Greek alphabet (secondary overview of history, sounds and numerals; also the source for the Phoenician origin, the 8th-century BCE dating and the 403 BCE adoption in Athens, which are conventional dates and approximate)