| Uppercase | Lowercase | Name | Value |
| Α | α | alpha | “Ah” |
| Β | β | beta | “B” |
| Γ | γ | gamma | “G” |
| Δ | δ | delta | “D” |
| Ε | ε | epsilon | “Eh” |
| Ζ | ζ | zeta | “Dz” |
| Η | η | eta | “Ey” |
| Θ | θ | theta | “Th” |
| Ι | ι | iota | “Ih”/“Ee” |
| Κ | κ | kappa | “K” |
| Λ | λ | lambda | “L” |
| Μ | μ | mu | “M” |
| Ν | ν | nu | “N” |
| Ξ | ξ | xei | “X” |
| Ο | ο | omicron | “O” |
| Π | π | pei | “P” |
| Ρ | ρ | rho | “R” |
| Σ | σ/ς | sigma | “S” |
| Τ | τ | tau | “T” |
| Υ | υ | upsilon | “Ue” |
| Φ | φ | phei | “p-h”/”f” |
| Χ | χ | khei | “k-h”/”kh” |
| Ψ | ψ | psei | “PS” |
| Ω | ω | omega | “Oh” |
The alphabet contained both vowels and consonants, but their expected values are not necessarily what one would expect. Greek, after all, was a different language from English, and certain nuances of pronunciation were regarded as more vital than others by the Greeks. Much of the pronunciation of Classical Greek is conjectural, but we have reasonable ideas on how the language was pronounced.
The consonants are easier to understand. Many resemble the Latin alphabet, and so are familiar to English speakers. Let’s look at them in detail.
Β β (beta) is pronounced like “b” in boy. Γ γ (gamma) is pronounced like “g” in girl. Δ δ (delta) is pronounced like “d” in dog. Κ κ (kappa) is pronounced like “c” in calendar. Λ λ (lambda) is pronounced like “l” in large. Μ μ (mu) was pronounced like “m” in mother. Ν ν (nu) was pronounced like “n” in not. Π π (pei) was pronounced like “p” in park. Ρ ρ (rho) was pronounced like “r” in ram, but was a rhotic R, meaning that it was pronounced with a breath at the end. Σ σ ς (sigma) was pronounced like “s” in same, but had two lowercase forms. The second one was used only at the ends of words, while the first was used everywhere else. Τ τ (tau) was pronounced like “t” in tame.
The letter Ζ ζ (zeta), despite appearing like the letter Z, was not pronounced that way. It was pronounced like “dz”, perhaps something like “ds” in suds. Because of the initial “d” it tended to be group with dentals (to be discussed later).
There were also two double consonants. They were formed by the fusion of two consonants into a new letter. They were Ξ ξ (xei) = Κ+ Σ, which was pronounced like “x” in sex, and Ψ ψ (psei) = Π+Σ, which was pronounced like “ps” in saps. Finally, there were several consonants that were formed by combining them with breathings (see below) to produce consonants that were pronounced with a breath. These were Θ θ (theta), pronounced like t-h, Φ φ (phei), pronounced like p-h (perhaps like tophat), and Χ χ (khei), pronounced like k-h. At some point, perhaps as early as the Classical Age, these aspirants began to shift to be pronounced as fricatives, such as “th”, in thorn, “f”, and “kh” (hard H).
A special rule applied when the letter gamma was followed by another palatal (kappa, another gamma, khei, or even xei). When this occurred, the first gamma was pronounced like “ñ” in Spanish señor. The second consonant in this group was pronounced normally. Example: ἄγγελος (añgelos), means messenger. Vowels are more problematic. Greek vowels can be divided into two types – short and long. The difference between them is not what one would expect from English. Short and long vowels were not pronounced differently. Rather, long vowels simply were pronounced longer than short ones, and any pronunciation differences were solely incidental to the time spent saying them. Some vowels had a short letter and a long letter companion, but not all. Let’s see how this works out.
| Short | Long | Sound |
| α | α | “a” as in father |
| ε | η | “e” as in fed, “ey” as in hey! |
| ι | ι | “i” as in hit, “ee” as in feed |
| ο | ω | “o” as in ton, “o” as in tome |
| υ | υ | “u” sound like German “Müller“ |
As you can see, alpha, iota, and upsilon can be long or short, but the lengths of the other vowels are indicated by different letters. A Greek was expected to know when a letter was long or short if it had no unique letter attributed to length. You will come to recognize when these vowels are long or short with certain clues that appear, such as accents and declensional patterns.
Sometimes, it’s not important to know. For now, just take it on faith that these clues will become apparent as we review more aspects of grammar. Finally, with vowels we have diphthongs. Diphthongs are combinations of two different vowels. Greek only allowed diphthongs to be formed if the second letter contained one of the two closed vowels, which were iota and upsilon. Any combination of the other letters with those two was possible, whether the first was long or short.
Examples of short vowels with iota:
| diphthong | sound |
| αι | sounds like "i" in "hi!" |
| ει | sounds like "ay" in "say" |
| οι | sounds like "oy" in "soy" |
| υι | sounds like "wi" in "win" |
Examples of long vowels with iota:
| diphthong | sound |
| ᾳ | like αι but longer |
| ῃ | like ει but longer, and sometimes interchangeable |
| ῳ | like οι but longer |
Notice how, when the initial vowel is long, the iota that follows is placed underneath, in a process called the iota subscript.
Finally, we have diphthongs with upsilon:
| diphthong | sound |
| αυ | sounds like "aw" in "saw" |
| ευ | sounds like "ewwww!" |
| ου | sounds like "ou" in "soup" |
| ηυ | sounds about the same as ευ, and the two were often interchangeable |
There were two characters not strictly part of the alphabet that were nonetheless used. They were the two breathing marks. The smooth breathing mark looked like a circle open on the left, as in the first alpha of ἀγορά. It had no pronounced value. The rough breathing mark was a circle that was open to the right, as in ὥρα. It was pronounced as a soft "h".
There was a rule in Greek that any word beginning with a vowel had to have a breathing mark, so if there was no "h" sound, then there was smooth breathing, and if there was, a rough breathing. Furthermore, all words that began with an upsilon had a rough breathing, and that upsilon was always long. Example: ὕλη (forest). Also, because rho was rhotic, every word that began with rho had to have a rough breathing on the rho, even though it wasn't a vowel. Example: ῥίς (nose)
Accents: I won’t go into much detail about accents, as there are lot of rules about them that will only make sense after we review nouns and verbs. For now, suffice it to say that there are three accents:
Acute (ά) Grave (ὰ) Circumflex (ᾶ)
The acute accent indicated that the stress that fell on that vowel required the speaker to raise his tone of voice when he pronounced it. The grave indicated a lowering of tone. The circumflex indicated a raising and then lowering of tone.
Elision: There was a non-mandatory rule in Greek that if a word ended with a short vowel, and was followed by a word that began with any vowel (even one with a rough breathing), that final short vowel could be dropped and the two words combined into one, with an apostrophe between them.
Example: τὰ χρήματα ἀγοράζει ὅπλα. = τὰ χρήματ'ἀγοράζει ὅπλα. (Money buys arms.) When elision occurs with a word that begins on a vowel with a rough breathing, the last consonant of the first word is modified into its aspirant.
Example: τὰ χρήματα ὅπλα ἀγοράζει. = τὰ χρήμαθ'ὅπλα ἀγοράζει. (Money buys arms.) Here the tau has become apposed to a rough breathing, turning it into a theta.
EDIT 6/25/12: Many alignment and justification fixes. Also added the note about rho and its rough breathing. 6/26/12. Changed guttural to palatal. Thanks to arapiles.
EDIT 7/28/12: Placed a complete table of the Greek alphabet. Gave a better example of rough breathing.