Greek Sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

And an Assignment of ASCII Characters to IPA Symbols

Please note: The current page is an adaptation for Greek of this general page, which is concerned with an assignment of ASCII characters to IPA symbols in general (for all languages) by the author.

Two tables are given below, one for consonants and one for vowels. The sounds of the Modern Greek language are shown in cyan-colored cells. Other cells that are not colored contain IPA-recognized sounds that are not found among the Modern Greek ones. Finally, darker-colored cells are sounds that cannot be generated by the human vocal system. ASCII symbols for use instead of the actual IPA symbols (in environments supporting only ASCII) are shown in red color. The following legend explains all this:

IPA
Greek sound
D ASCII
character
sample Greek syllable
IPA non-Greek
sound
S ASCII
character
(blank cell) sound possible by the human vocal system, but not observed in any language sound impossible by the human vocal system

Consonants

In the table of consonants, below, the first symbol within a cell denotes an unvoiced sound (e.g., t), whereas the second symbol denotes the corresponding voiced sound (e.g., d).

Consonants Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
Plosive
p b
ðá ìðá
 
t d
ôá íôá
\ /
c ]
êé ãêé
k g
êá ãêá
q G
 
 
?  
   
Nasal
  m
  ìá
  M
ðáìö-
  n
  íá
  %
  #
  íé
  N
  áã÷-
  7
   
Trill
  }
 
  R
  ôñá
     
  8
   
Tap or Flap    
  P
  áñá
  [
         
Fricative
F B
f v
öá âá
T D
èá äá
s z
óá æá
S Z
$ 2
C J
÷é ãé
x +
÷á ãá
X Q
H 9
h 6
Lateral
fricative
   
4 5
           
Approximant  
  V
  r
  {
  j
  W
     
Lateral
approximant
   
  l
  ëá
  |
  K
  ëé
  L
     

Before proceeding to the Greek vowels, let us make a few explanatory notes on the rows and columns of the above table:

Vowels

In the table of vowels, below, wherever symbols appear in pairs, the leftmost symbol of the pair denotes an unrounded vowel, while the rightmost symbol denotes the corresponding rounded vowel.

Vowels   Front   Cen tral       Back
Close i y   1 -      
w u
  ôé               ôïõ
      IY         U  
Close-mid   e 0   ) =    
, o
    ôå             ôï
            @      
Open-mid     E ~   3 ;  
^ O
                   
        &     *    
Open       a <      
A (
        ôá          

The meaning of the columns and rows of the table for vowels is as follows:


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