Romanization of Greek facts for kids

Romanization of Greek is about writing Greek words using the Latin alphabet. This is the alphabet used for English and many other languages. It's like translating the way words look or sound from one writing system to another.

There are two main ways to do this:

• Transliteration: This means changing each Greek letter into a specific Latin letter. It's like a direct letter-for-letter swap.
• Transcription: This focuses on how the Greek word sounds. It tries to write the sounds using Latin letters, even if it's not a direct letter-for-letter match.

For example, the Greek name Ἰωάννης (Ioannis) can be transliterated as "Johannes." This name later became "John" in English. In modern Greek, the name is often written Γιάννης (Giannis), which transliterates to "Yannis."

Another example is the Greek word Ἅγιος or Άγιος, which means "Holy" or "Saint." You might see it written as "Hagios," "Agios," "Aghios," or "Ayios." Sometimes, it's just translated directly to "Holy" or "Saint" in English place names.

How Greek Words Started Being Written in English

The way we write Greek names in English today often comes from how the Romans wrote them long ago. The Latin alphabet itself actually came from an older Greek alphabet.

When the Romans started writing classical Greek words, they made some changes:

• The Greek letter ⟨κ⟩ (kappa) became ⟨c⟩.
• Greek letter pairs like ⟨αι⟩ (ai) and ⟨οι⟩ (oi) became ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩.
• Other pairs like ⟨ει⟩ (ei) and ⟨ου⟩ (ou) were simplified to ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩.
• Greek sounds with a breath, like ⟨θ⟩ (th), ⟨φ⟩ (ph), ⟨ρ⟩ (rh) at the start of a word, and ⟨χ⟩ (ch), were written out as ⟨th⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨rh⟩, and ⟨ch⟩.

Over time, the English language changed a lot. Because of this, modern experts now often write ⟨κ⟩ as ⟨k⟩. They also write the Greek letter pairs ⟨αι, οι, ει, ου⟩ as ⟨ai, oi, ei, ou⟩. More and more, they also write ⟨χ⟩ as ⟨kh⟩.

Modern Rules for Romanization

The sounds of the Greek language have also changed over many centuries. Modern Greek sounds different from Ancient Greek. This has led to many different ways of writing Greek names and places in English during the 1800s and 1900s.

To make things more organized, the Hellenic Organization for Standardization (ELOT) created a system in 1983. They worked with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

This system was later accepted by important groups around the world:

• The United Nations in 1987.
• The United Kingdom's Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN) in 1996.
• The United States' Board on Geographic Names (BGN) in 1996.
• The ISO itself in 1997.

For a while, people in Greece had to use the ELOT system for official documents like passports. But after 2011, a new rule allowed Greeks to use other spellings for their names, like "Demetrios" instead of the standard "Dimitrios" for Δημήτριος. However, their official documents must still show the standard spelling too.

Other systems for romanization exist, such as an older BGN/PCGN system from 1962. The American Library Association and the Library of Congress in the United States also have their own system.

Images for kids

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  A robot for kids.

See also

• In Spanish: Romanización del griego para niños