The Use of Gamma in Place of Digamma in Ancient Greek

What is it about?

This article looks at how the use of a certain letter disappeared in Ancient Greek. This letter was called "digamma" and sounded like the English "w" in "way". However, this sound popped up again, here and there, in certain rare Greek words. But this time "w" was written using other letters, like "gamma" (which sounded like the English "g" in "get"). This obviously caused great confusion, and some Greek words with "g" instead of "w" puzzled the experts for a long time. Imagine the mixup if "way" was written with a "g" in expressions like: "born this way", "way better", or "one way or another". This article brings clarity to this question. It tells the story of this bizarre development of the Greek language, and explains the reasons behind it.

Featured Image