2.4 Greek is strange when it comes to pronouncing and writing words with a “s” sound, represented by the Greek letter sigma. On the one hand, the sound is very common in Greek. On the other, if a word is odd or difficult to spell or pronounce, it seems that a sigma is often involved. Note what happens, for example, when sigma directly follows a labial, dental, and palatal STOP consonant.
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Athenian use of the DOUBLE CONSONANTS ψ and ξ began in earnest after they adopted the Ionic Greek alphabet in 403 B.C. Before this, Athenians regularly spelled out combinations such as πσ, κσ, and χσ. Note, for example, in the image at the top of this lesson that Athenians in 484 B.C. spelled the name Ξάνθιππος without the double consonant: Χσάνθιππος.
2.5 The resulting consonant chart now looks like this:
Sigma is unique among Greek letters in that it has two lower case versions: σ and ς. The form ς only occurs at the end of words. The form σ is used in all other locations, a convention that arose from the desire of early manuscript writers to have a cursive form that easily continued to the next letter.
