The Greek alphabet: the second eight letters

These are the next eight letters. Notice that some Greek letters have a familiar look (e.g., α, β, ε, ι, κ, ο) as both capital and lowercase letters.


Other letters look familiar as a uppercase letter (e.g., Ζ, Μ, Ν) but not in lowercase (ζ, μ, ν).

The lowercase Ν ('ν') is an example of an especially tricky kind of Greek letter; to an English speaker it looks like something it is not. It looks like a 'vee'. It is not; it is the lowercase form for the Greek equivalent of an English 'n'.

Similarly, the uppercase ήτα (H) looks like something it is not; the Greek Η (lowercase 'η') is a vowel, with a sound pronounced (in modern Greek) exactly like the sound of the Greek γιώτα.