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Polytonic Greek script is the standard way of writing ancient Greek and Kathareuousa, and a deprecated way of writing Dhimotiki, the standard form of the modern Greek language.

Polytonic Greek utilizes a set of five diacritic marks:

• The accents (tónoi, τόνοι):
  • Okseía (οξεία), the acute accent, written over a stressed vowel of a word,
  • Bareía (βαρεία), the grave accent, written over a stressed vowel of a word,
  • Perispoméni (περισπωμένη), originally a circumflex, but now written as a tilde, macron, or inverted breve.
• The spirits:
  • Psilí (ψιλή), or smooth breathing ( spiritus lenis), written over the first letter of some of the words starting with a vowel,
  • Daseía (δασεία), or rough breathing ( spiritus asper), written over the first letter of the words starting with a vowel that don't take a psilí, always if this letter is upsilon, and words starting with the consonant rho (ρ).

In modern Greek, the pronunciation of okseía, bareía and perispoméni is identical, whereas psilí and daseía are voiceless. This has led to the creation of simpler mode of writing which has eventually become the standard in modern Greek, Monotonic, which only uses the okseía.

1 History

To be written

2 Sample Greek text

The Lord's PrayerThe Lord's Prayer (sometimes known by its first two Latin words as the Pater Noster or the English equivalent Our Father is probably the best-known prayer in the Christian religion. According to the New Testament, the prayer was given by Jesus of Nazareth in Koine:

2.1 Polytonic

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·
τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·
καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφελήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ρῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
ἀμήν.