The Greek Alphabet: 24 Letters

The Greek alphabet is the ancestor of the Latin alphabet you are reading right now, which is exactly why it feels almost familiar and then trips you up. Twenty-four letters, written left to right, lowercase in running text — nothing exotic about the mechanics. The challenge is that Greek kept some letter shapes that Latin later borrowed for entirely different sounds. Learn the 24 letters properly once, master a small set of two-letter combinations, and Modern Greek becomes one of the most regular writing systems in Europe: with very few exceptions, you can look at a word and know how it is pronounced.

This page walks through all 24 letters in order, giving each its name, its Modern Greek sound, and both its uppercase and lowercase shapes. Two ideas will save you weeks of confusion, so meet them now.

The 24 letters in order

Read the table across: the two shapes, the Greek name with its pronunciation, the sound in IPA, and the value this guide uses in its romanization line.

Notice something reassuring in that last column: several sounds simply repeat. Η, Ι and Υ all make [i]; Ο and Ω both make [o]. Ancient Greek distinguished these vowels, but Modern Greek merged them in speech while keeping the old spellings. That is the trade Greek offers you: pronunciation is easy, and the "difficulty" moves into spelling — knowing which i-letter a word uses. That is a topic for the spelling section, not for your mouth.

The two lowercase sigmas: σ and ς

The letter sigma has two lowercase forms, and choosing between them is purely mechanical — no thought required once you know the rule:

• ς (final sigma) is used only at the very end of a word.
• σ is used everywhere else — at the start and in the middle.

The word for "earthquake" shows both in one shot: σεισμός — it opens with σ and closes with ς.

Both are pronounced identically as [s] (or [z] before a voiced consonant, as inside σεισμός itself). The uppercase form is always Σ; the σ/ς split exists in lowercase only.

Names versus sounds

When you spell something aloud or recite the alphabet, you use the names — άλφα, βήτα, γάμα, and so on down to ωμέγα. When you read a word, you use the sounds. Beginners sometimes try to pronounce a word by stringing the letter names together, which produces nonsense. The word ναι ("yes") is not "ni-alpha-iota"; it is simply [ne], one syllable.

Digraphs: the small print that makes Greek regular

A few sounds are written with two letters rather than one. You do not need them all today, but knowing they exist explains why Greek looks so predictable. The vowel combinations αι, ει, οι, ου and the consonant combinations μπ, ντ, γκ, τσ, τζ each map to a single sound. For example μπ spells the [b] that Greek has no single letter for, and ντ spells [d]. This is why words that look like they should start with a "b" or "d" are actually written with two letters.

These combinations get full treatment on the consonant digraphs and vowel digraphs pages. For now, just register that "two letters, one sound" is a normal and frequent pattern.

The false-friend trap (read this before signs confuse you)

Here is the single biggest source of beginner errors. Several Greek letters are visual twins of Latin letters with different values. Your eyes will read them as English out of pure habit:

• Ρ ρ looks like "P" but is [r] — Greek ρο.
• Η η looks like "H" but is [i].
• Χ χ looks like "X" but is , the "ch" of Scottish loch.
• Β β looks like "B" but is [v].
• Ν ν looks like "v"/"N" but is [n].
• Υ υ looks like "Y"/"U" but is [i].
• Ω ω looks like "w" but is [o].

The capitals are where this bites hardest, because road signs, shop fronts and headlines are written in capitals. The place name ΡΟΔΟΣ is Ródhos (Rhodes), not "Podos"; ΥΓΕΙΑ on a pharmacy is iyía ("health"), not "Ygeia". Because this trap is so systematic, it has its own dedicated page — go there next.

How Greek is written on the page

• Left to right, exactly like English.
• Lowercase in running text; capitals for the first letter of a sentence and of proper names, and for whole-word emphasis on signage — just like English.
• Stress is marked with a single small accent, the tonos, over the vowel of the stressed syllable in any word of two or more syllables: καλημέρα, ευχαριστώ, θάλασσα. Greek stress is lexical — it is not predictable from spelling — so the tonos is doing real work, telling you where to push. That mark, and only that mark, appears over Modern Greek vowels; the breathing marks and multiple accents of older texts were officially abolished in 1982. Stress gets its own page: the tonos.

Common Mistakes

1. Reading Η as an English "h". The letter Η/η is a vowel, [i]. English speakers see the capital and think of the word "day" as starting with a breathy "h".

2. Reading Ρ as a "p". Ρ ρ is Greek ro, the [r] sound. The Latin-looking shape is a false friend.

3. Pronouncing Β as "b". Β/β is [v]. The [b] sound is spelled with the digraph μπ instead.

4. Writing σ at the end of a word. Inside and at the start, use σ; at the very end, switch to ς.

Key Takeaways

• Greek has 24 letters, written left to right, lowercase in text, with a single tonos marking the stressed syllable.
• A letter's name (βήτα) and its sound ([v]) are different things — read words by sound, not by reciting names.
• σ is used at the start and middle of a word, ς only at the end; both sound like [s].
• Η, Ι, Υ all sound [i]; Ο and Ω both sound [o] — easy to say, a challenge to spell.
• Beware the Latin false friends (Ρ, Η, Χ, Β, Ν, Υ, Ω); they are handled in depth on their own page.