PRINTING AND BOOKMAKING.
 

GRE
 

ai, 81, oi, av, sv, ov, and the improper diphthongs a, y,
GD, ?/v, GOV and vi. The a, y and qd have the second
letter ( J of the diphthong written Vinderneath. This
is called iota subscriptum, and is generally so written
with these letters. But when capitals are used the iota
is written in at length, as AE^nOTHI = dsdjtory.

Every word in Greek which begins with a vowel or
diphthong has a mark over this initial vowel or diph¬
thong called a breathing; it is placed over the second
vowel of a diphthong, as ex^, <^^S- There are two
kinds of breathings, the rough and the smooth, gener¬
ally known by the names of spiritus asper and spiritus
lenis. The rough breathing gives the power of the let¬
ter h to the vowel, as in oi, pronounced hoi, and "EnvGop,
Hector. The mark is like a turned comma. The smooth
breathing seems to have no power. It is shown by a
mark like a comma over the letter, as in dvTJp. The
letter r or rli has a rough breathing over it at the begin¬
ning of a word, and when two p's come together in the
centre the second has this mark, the other having the
smooth breathing, but there is no rough breathing when
there is only a single p. In some modern editions the
breathings over pp are omitted.

Nearly all Greek words have an accent, but very few
have more than one. The exceptions are a very few
small ones, which are known as atonies. A few other
small words known as enclitics have their accent usu¬
ally upon the preceding word, with which they are
closely connected. Only one syllable of a word is ac¬
cented with an acute or circumflex. The acute can stand
on one of the last three syllables ; the circumflex on one
of the last two. The other syllables of the word for¬
merly had a grave accent, but one is not at present gen¬
erally employed. It now only occurs in the last syllable.
The acute accent inclines to the right, as in Ttoir/dco, the
grave inclines to the left, as in 0£6d&3po?. In this the
second, fifth and seventh letters have grave accents,
while the third letter has an acute. From the acute and
grave arose the circumflex ("). Thus a came from dd,
G9 from 6d and y from ed. When the accented syllable
has also a breathing the acute and grave are placed after
the breathing and the circumflex above it, as in tJ, go, o.
When it is a capital they or any one of them are placed
before it, as "H, !Q. With a proper diphthong their
place is over the second vowel, as Ovrs, Ovv. An im¬
proper diphthong is treated as a single vowel, taking
its accents before the capital and over the vowel shown,
as in"Ai8?/i = ad?/i. When a diseresis occurs the acute
accent is between the two dots, while the circumflex
stands above. The use of the diseresis is the same as in
English, separating the second of two vowels from coa¬
lescing with the first. It will therefore be seen that a
set of accents and breathings for Greek consists of acute,
grave, circumflex and diseresis for all the vowels, seven
in number, and the iota subscript for a, y and go ; the
rough and smooth breathings for p; the combination
of two accents or of one accent and a breathing for each
of the vowels, and a rough and smooth breathing, and
acute, grave and circumflex accents to use before capi¬
tal letters or in other places where they cannot be em¬
ployed over them.

It should be noticed that the accent in the same word
with the same meaning does not always remain the same.
The acute accent changes into the grave under some
circumstances. Accents are also used to mark a differ¬
ence in meaning in a word, as in the French ou, or, and
ou, where. Thus /3ioi, life, is distinguished from ^l6^,
bow ; difjiioi, people, from d?jjii6i, fat. Certain vowels
are cut oif when the next word begins with a vowel, as
an' aXkoov for a. ltd aXXcov, an apostrophe being used
at the end of the first word as the mark of elision. When
two words, one ending and the other beginning with a
vowel, are blended, as in our word wherever, the last
letter of the first word is dropped, the succeeding vowel,
with its mark, answering for the whole. This is known
as coronis.    Syllables end with a vowel and begin with
 

a consonant, this forming the rule of division. When,
therefore, a consonant stands between two vowels it is
construed as belonging to the second. Thus the fol¬
lowing divisions are correct: ito-ra-jiid'^, o-ipo-juat,
8-6xor, 8-/5Xa-ipa. Compound words are divided ac¬
cording to the originals, as we divide horse-man and
rail-road. When a consonant is doubled under certain
circumstances the first consonant ends a syllable, and
the other begins one. There are exceptions. Marks for
quantity are used by grammarians and annotators, being
the same that are used in all other languages of Europe.
There are two signs, ^ for short syllables and ' for long
syllables. When employed in Greek the other marks
which may be necessary are inserted before the vowel,
but they are generally omitted. Capital lines used for
headings or in titles frequently omit all accents, but
sometimes have them preceding the character to which
they refer and sometimes place them over the top. In
the latter case they must be separately justified. Some
letters are kerned, to give greater room for the face in
one direction.

Theoretically, it would be an improvement to have
the accents separate from the letters, as it would lessen
the number of sorts required, but although this has been
done it is difficult to compose them easily and justify
them exactly. A neat accent should not have a body
more than a quarter of that used for the text. Thus a
pica would take a half nonpareil, or three points, and a
brevier would require a two-point body, to which quad¬
rats, spaces and accents should be made. A double set
of characters is also required for the vowels in the text,
one full body and the other cut away. These objections
do not apply to great primer Greek and larger.

There are several characters which have two forms,
as for theta ^ and 0, and for sigma 6 and i. The latter
is final, the former being used in the centre of words.
Yet of late the i has been employed in syllable endings,
although in the centre of the word.

The letters which are much alike, or which are liable
to be confounded one for another, are as follows : A,
alpha ; A, delta, and A, lambda ; II, eta, and II, pi; Z,
zeta, and ^, sigma; S, theta, and O, omicron ; T, tau,
and T, upsilon. In lower case they are : d, delta, and
^, theta ; C, zeta, and ^ xi; j.i, mu, and v, upsilon; v^
nu, and v, upsilon; o, omicron, and 6, sigma; and iet,
one form of pi, and gi, omega. The letters which con¬
trast much with English are : P ;k, G ; ^, D ; ^,z', Iltf,
E; v4A, L; /^,m; r,n; 3;iX; i7;r, P;Pp, R; :E(d,
S ; T,Vi; and/2 go,o. The double letters are all unlike
those in English, 0 0, th ; ^ <7), ph ; X x, ch ; and ^, ps.

In punctuation several characters are employed dif¬
ferently from the modern languages. The comma is
alike ; the colon or semicolon is a period upside down ;
the interrogation is a semicolon. The other points are
alike. For greater relief to the eye and to show subdi¬
visions in the paragraph some authors and annotators
put a large blank, of three, four or five ems, where a
new paragraph would be made in English.

The Greeks expressed their numbers by letters. The
first eight letters stood for the units, with an additional
character, which signifies 6, and is therefore ranged in
the sixth place ; the second rank consists of tens, and is
formed of the eight succeeding letters, with an additional
character, which signifies 90 ; the third rank consists of

T J'   ^  S    r    ^   v:5   c

6.          90.          900.       Beta.   Gamma.   Zeta.      Pi.     Sigma.

PECULIAR CHARACTERS IN GREEK.

hundreds, and contains eight letters, with an additional
character, which signifies 900, as here given. An accent
under each letter in the fourth rank signifies a thousand,
and the letter itself expresses the number of thousands
which are meant. The letters of the first three ranks
are marked with a mark on the top, like a bookkeeper's

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