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But close enough, if I understand, that an average Greek speaker might have accepted the statement as true, in the way that an average American English speaker might agree that "saw" and "pot" have the same vowel sound, no matter how many linguists' heads explode.

I always wondered if the ω glyph developed when lazy monks sloppily doubled up oo to make the o-mega… but I never investigated whether this is true.




Completely off-topic, but I think linguists would be the first to point out that the two sounds are identical in many American English dialects.

Also, from my understanding, ω is just a degenerate form of the upper-case form (Ω) when drawn really flat and with the edges flaired up [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega


I think ω is pronounced like 'or' and ο just pronounced 'o'


Replying to original comment as well as this.

Ω is the capital of ω, exactly the same letters, though ancient Greeks only used capital letters.

The Ω was pronounced a bit more deep in the throat, kind of like "ho", but that difference was more accented when the letter was used by itself as an article "Ω human", for example.

Still though there is no absolute knowledge for the exact pronunciation of any of the ancient Greek. My belief is that the most close modern dialect is the Cypriot since it's the most melodic and rhythmic.




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