Greek ligatures 1

Greek ligatures

Early Greek print, from a 1566 edition of Aristotle.The sample shows the -os ligature in the middle of the second line (inthe 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.

18th-century typeface sample by William Caslon, showing a greatlyreduced set of ligatures (-ου- in "τοῦ", end of first line; -στ- inπλείστοις, middle of second line; and the καὶ abbreviation).

Greek ligatures are graphic combinations of the lettersof the Greek alphabet that were used in medievalhandwritten Greek and in early printing. Ligatures wereused in the cursive writing style and very extensively inlater minuscule writing. There were many dozens[1][2]

of conventional ligatures. Some of them stood forfrequent letter combinations, some for inflectionalendings of words, and some were abbreviations ofentire words.

In early printed Greek from around 1500, manyligatures fashioned after contemporary manuscripthands continued to be used. Important models for thisearly typesetting practice were the designs of AldusManutius in Venice, and those of Claude Garamond inParis, who created the influential Grecs du roi typefacein 1541. However, the use of ligatures graduallydeclined during the 17th and 18th centuries and becamemostly obsolete in modern typesetting. Among theligatures that remained in use the longest are theligature Ȣ for ου, which resembles an o with an u ontop, and the abbreviation ϗ for καὶ ('and'), whichresembles a κ with a downward stroke on the right. Theου ligature is still occasionally used in decorativewriting, while the καὶ abbreviation has some limitedusage in functions similar to the Latin ampersand (&).Another ligature that was relatively frequent in earlymodern printing is a ligature of Ο with ς (a small sigmainside an omicron) for a terminal ος.

The ligature ϛ for στ, now called stigma, survived in a special role besides its use as a ligature proper. It took on thefunction of a number sign for "6", having been visually conflated with the cursive form of the ancient letterdigamma, which had this numeral function.

Computer EncodingIn the modern computer encoding standard Unicode, the abbreviation ϗ has been encoded since version 3.0 of thestandard (1999). An uppercase version Ϗ was added in version 5.1 (2008). A lower and upper case "stigma", designedfor its numeric use, is also encoded in Unicode. Letters derived from the ου ligature exist for use in Latin, and forCyrillic, though not for Greek itself. Some attempts have been made at recreating typesetting with ligatures inmodern computer fonts, either through Unicode-compliant OpenType glyph replacement,[3] or with simpler butnon-standardized methods of glyph-by-glyph encoding.[4]

•• Greek digraphs

Greek ligatures 2

Character Ϗ ϗ Ϛ ϛ

Unicode name GREEK CAPITAL KAISYMBOL

GREEK KAISYMBOL

GREEK LETTERSTIGMA

GREEK SMALL LETTERSTIGMA

Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex

Unicode 975 U+03CF 983 U+03D7 986 U+03DA 987 U+03DB

UTF-8 207 143 CF 8F 207 151 CF 97 207 154 CF 9A 207 155 CF 9B

Numeric characterreference

Ϗ Ϗ ϗ ϗ Ϛ Ϛ ϛ ϛ

•• Latin and Cyrillic Ou digraphs

Character Ȣ ȣ Ꙋ ꙋ

Unicode name LATIN CAPITALLETTER OU

LATIN SMALLLETTER OU

CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTERMONOGRAPH UK

CYRILLIC SMALL LETTERMONOGRAPH UK

Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex

Unicode 546 U+0222 547 U+0223 42570 U+A64A 42571 U+A64B

UTF-8 200 162 C8 A2 200 163 C8 A3 234 153 138 EA 99 8A 234 153 139 EA 99 8B

Numeric characterreference

Ȣ Ȣ ȣ ȣ Ꙋ Ꙋ ꙋ ꙋ

Example images

(-ei-)(-ger-) (kai) (-mō-) (-os) (oûn)

(phēsi)(-ést-)

References[1] The Philokalia Package (http:/ / www. math. washington. edu/ tex-archive/ fonts/ philokalia/ philokalia. pdf), for LaTeX[2] Carl Faulmann, Das Buch der Schrift: Schriftzeichen und Alphabete aller Zeiten und Völker, Vienna 1880, p.172-176.[3][3] e.g. ;[4][4] e.g.

Article Sources and Contributors 3

Article Sources and ContributorsGreek ligatures  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=580947036  Contributors: AndrewHowse, Cevlakohn, Davidiad, Dawn Bard, Eddiemizzi, FilipeS, Future Perfect at Sunrise,Jasper Deng, Jesse V., Macrakis, Porges, Poulpy, RadarEclipse, Ross Burgess, Vanisaac, Xueexueg, 9 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsImage:Greek print 1566 Aristotle.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_print_1566_Aristotle.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: cropped, photoshoppedfor readability and uploaded by User:Future Perfect at SunriseImage:Caslon Greek type sample.jpeg  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Caslon_Greek_type_sample.jpeg  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Future Perfect atSunrise, Túrelio, 1 anonymous editsImage:Greek ligature epsilon-iota-circumflex.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_epsilon-iota-circumflex.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors:Future Perfect at SunriseImage:Greek ligature gamma-epsilon-rho.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_gamma-epsilon-rho.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: FuturePerfect at SunriseImage:Greek ligature kai.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_kai.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Future Perfect at SunriseImage:Greek ligature mu-omega.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_mu-omega.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Future Perfect at SunriseImage:Greek ligature omikron-sigma.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_omikron-sigma.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Future Perfect atSunriseImage:Greek ligature oun.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_oun.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Future Perfect at SunriseImage:Greek ligature phesi.png  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Greek_ligature_phesi.png  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Future Perfect at SunriseImage:estlig.PNG  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Estlig.PNG  License: Public Domain  Contributors: Cevlakohn, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Sfan00 IMG

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