View source for Digamma

{{Short description|Archaic letter of the Greek alphabet}}
{{About|the Greek letter|the mathematical function|digamma function}}
{{for-multi|the Cyrillic letter|I (Cyrillic)|the Arcadian letter|Tsan}}
{{pp-semi|small=yes}}
{{Greek Alphabet|Image=Digamma Stigma.svg}}

'''Digamma''' or '''wau''' (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an [[Archaic Greek alphabets|archaic letter]] of the [[Greek alphabet]]. It originally stood for the sound {{IPAslink|w}} but it has remained in use principally as a [[Greek numeral]] for [[6 (number)|6]]. Whereas it was originally called ''waw'' or ''wau'', its most common appellation in classical Greek is ''digamma''; as a numeral, it was called ''episēmon'' during the Byzantine era and is now known as ''[[stigma (letter)|stigma]]'' after the [[Greek ligature|Byzantine ligature]] combining σ-τ  as ϛ.

Digamma or wau was part of the original archaic Greek alphabet as initially adopted from [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]]. Like its model, Phoenician [[Waw (letter)|waw]], it represented the [[voiced labial-velar approximant]] {{IPA|/w/}} and stood in the 6th position in the alphabet between [[epsilon]] and [[zeta]]. It is the consonantal doublet of the vowel letter [[upsilon]] ({{IPA|/u/}}), which was also derived from waw but was placed near the end of the Greek alphabet. Digamma or wau is in turn the ancestor of the [[Latin alphabet|Latin letter]] [[F (letter)|F]]. As an alphabetic letter, it is attested in archaic and dialectal [[Ancient Greek language|ancient Greek]] [[inscription]]s until the classical period.

The shape of the letter went through a development from <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma oblique.svg|x16px]]</span> through <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma 05.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma angular.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 01.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 02.svg|x16px]]</span> to <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 05.svg|x16px]]</span> or <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 06.svg|x16px]]</span>, which at that point was conflated with the σ-τ ligature <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 07.svg|x16px]]</span>. In modern print, a distinction is made between the letter in its original alphabetic role as a consonant sign, which is rendered as "Ϝ" or its modern lowercase variant "ϝ", and the numeric symbol, which is represented by "ϛ". In [[modern Greek]], this is often replaced by the digraph {{lang|el|στ}}.

==Greek w==

===Mycenaean Greek===
[[File:Ceramic fragment with WANAKTI inscription.jpg|thumb|right|Ancient Greek ceramic fragment depicting a horse with rider. The inscription reads [...]Ι ϜΑΝΑΚΤΙ ([...]i wanakti), "to the king", with an initial digamma (and a [[Archaic Greek alphabets#Corinthian|local Σ-shaped form]] for [[iota]]).]]

The sound {{IPA|/w/}} existed in [[Mycenean Greek]], as attested in [[Linear B]] and archaic Greek inscriptions using digamma.  It is also confirmed by the [[Hittite language|Hittite]] name of [[Troy]], ''[[Wilusa]]'', corresponding to the Greek name *''Wilion'', classical {{lang|grc|Ἴλιον}} {{grc-transl|Ἴλιον}} (Ilium).

===Classical Greek===
The {{IPAslink|w}} sound was lost at various times in various dialects, mostly before the classical period.

In [[Ionic Greek|Ionic]], {{IPAslink|w}} had probably disappeared before [[Homer]]'s epics were written down (7th century BC), but its former presence can be detected in many cases because its omission left the [[meter (poetry)|meter]] defective. For example, the word {{lang|grc|[[anax|ἄναξ]]}} ("[[tribal king|(tribal) king]], lord, (military) leader"),<ref>{{LSJ|a)/nac|ἄναξ|ref}}</ref> found in the [[Iliad]], would have originally been {{lang|grc|ϝάναξ}} {{IPA|/wánaks/}} (and is attested in this form in Mycenaean Greek; <ref>{{cite book |author=Chadwick, John|title=The Decipherment of Linear B |publisher=Second edition (1990). [[Cambridge University Press|Cambridge UP]] |year=1990 |orig-date=1958 |isbn=0-521-39830-4|author-link=John Chadwick }}</ref>) and the word {{lang|grc|οἶνος}} ("wine") is sometimes used in the meter where a word starting with a consonant would be expected. Further evidence coupled with cognate-analysis shows that {{lang|grc|οἶνος}} was earlier {{lang|grc|ϝοῖνος}} {{IPA|/woînos/}}<ref>{{LSJ|oi){{=}}nos1|οἶνος|ref}}:
:Ϝοῖνος [[Gortyn code|Leg.Gort.]] [http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main?url=oi%3Fikey%3D200508 col X.39] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304090144/http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main?url=oi%3Fikey=200508 |date=2012-03-04 }}</ref> (compare [[History of Crete#Classical and Hellenistic Crete|Cretan]] [[Doric Greek|Doric]] {{lang|grc-x-doric|ibêna}} and [[Latin]] {{lang|la|vīnum}}, which is the origin of [[English language|English]] ''wine''<ref>{{Cite web |title=wine {{!}} Etymology, origin and meaning of wine by etymonline |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/wine |access-date=2023-06-03 |website=www.etymonline.com |language=en}}</ref>). There have been editions of the Homeric epics where the wau was re-added, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but these have largely fallen out of favour.

[[Aeolic Greek|Aeolian]] was the dialect that kept the sound {{IPAslink|w}} longest. In discussions by ancient Greek grammarians of the Hellenistic era, the letter is therefore often described as a characteristic Aeolian feature.

Loanwords that entered Greek before the loss of {{IPA|/w-/}} lost that sound when Greek did. For instance, [[Oscan]] {{lang|osc|Viteliu}} ('land of the male calves', compare {{langx|la|vitulus}} 'yearling, male calf') gave rise to the Greek word {{lang|grc|Ἰταλία}} {{grc-transl|Ἰταλία}}. The Adriatic tribe of the [[Adriatic Veneti|Veneti]] was called in {{lang|grc|Ἐνετοί}} {{grc-transl|Ἐνετοί}}. In loanwords that entered the Greek language after the drop of {{IPAslink|w}}, the phoneme was once again registered, compare for example the spelling of {{lang|grc|Οὐάτεις}} {{grc-transl|Οὐάτεις}} for ''[[vates]]''.

===Pamphylian digamma===
{{See also|Pamphylian Greek|Tsan}}
[[File:Greek Sigma 01.svg|thumb|right|100px|Pamphylian digamma]]
In some local (''epichoric'') alphabets, a variant glyph of the letter digamma existed: {{lang|grc-x-pamph|Ͷ}}. In [[Pamphylian Greek]], it existed side by side with standard digamma as two distinct letters, due to {{IPAslink|w}} shifting to labiodental {{IPAslink|v}} in some - but not all - environments. {{lang|grc-x-pamph|Ϝ}} seems to have been used for shifted {{IPAslink|v}}, while {{lang|grc-x-pamph|Ͷ}} was used in the positions where {{IPAslink|w}} was retained.<ref>Nick Nicholas: [http://www.opoudjis.net/unicode/epigraphical.pdf Proposal to add Greek epigraphical letters to the UCS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160807015713/http://www.opoudjis.net/unicode/epigraphical.pdf |date=2016-08-07 }}. Technical report, Unicode Consortium, 2005. Citing C. Brixhe, ''Le dialecte grec de Pamphylie. Documents et grammaire''. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1976.</ref>

==Numeral==
Digamma/wau remained in use in the system of [[Greek numerals]] attributed to [[Miletus]], where it stood for the number 6, reflecting its original place in the sequence of the alphabet. It was one of three letters that were kept in this way in addition to the 24 letters of the classical alphabet, the other two being [[koppa (letter)|koppa]] (ϙ) for 90, and [[sampi]] (ϡ) for 900. During their history in handwriting in late antiquity and the Byzantine era, all three of these symbols underwent several changes in shape, with digamma ultimately taking the form of "ϛ".

It has remained in use as a numeral in Greek to the present day, in contexts comparable to those where Latin numerals would be used in English, for instance in [[regnal number]]s of monarchs or in enumerating chapters in a book, although in practice the letter sequence ΣΤ΄ is much more common.

==Glyph development==
[[File:NAMA Alphabet grec.jpg|thumb|The alphabet on a [[black figure]] vessel, with a square-C digamma.]]

===Epigraphy===
Digamma was derived from Phoenician waw, which was shaped roughly like a Y (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Phoenician waw.svg|x14px]]</span>). Of the two Greek reflexes of waw, digamma retained the alphabetic position, but had its shape modified to <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma oblique.svg|x16px]]</span>, while the [[upsilon]] retained the original shape but was placed in a new alphabetic position. Early Crete had an archaic form of digamma somewhat closer to the original Phoenician, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma 02.svg|x16px]]</span>, or a variant with the stem bent sidewards (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma 09.svg|x16px]]</span>). The shape <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma oblique.svg|x16px]]</span>, during the archaic period, underwent a development parallel to that of [[epsilon]] (which changed from <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Epsilon archaic.svg|x16px]]</span> to "E", with the arms becoming orthogonal and the lower end of the stem being shed off). For digamma, this led to the two main variants of classical "F" and square <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma angular.svg|x16px]]</span>.<ref name="jeffery">{{cite book |last=Jeffery |first=Lilian H. |title=The local scripts of archaic Greece |place=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon |year=1961 |pages=24f |oclc=312031 }}</ref>

The latter of these two shapes became dominant when used as a numeral, with "F" only very rarely employed in this function. However, in Athens, both of these were avoided in favour of a number of alternative numeral shapes (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma numeric 01.svg|x16px|Ϝ]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma numeric 02.svg|x16px|Ϝ]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma numeric 03.svg|x16px|Ϝ]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma numeric 04.svg|x16px|Ϝ]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma numeric 05.svg|x16px|5]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma numeric 06.svg|x16px|6]]</span>).<ref name="tod">{{cite journal|last=Tod|first=Marcus N.|title=The alphabetic numeral system in Attica|journal=Annual of the British School at Athens|volume=45|year=1950|pages=126–139|doi=10.1017/s0068245400006730|s2cid=128438705 }}</ref>

=== Early handwriting ===
[[File:Oxford, Sackler Library Ms LXIV 4499 (Papyrus 115) Plate 3 verso crop Number of the Beast χιϛ 616.jpg|thumb|A fragment of [[Papyrus 115]], showing the number "{{overline|{{lang|grc|χιϛ}}}}" (616, the "[[Number of the beast|Number of the Beast]]"), with a C-shaped digamma.]]
In cursive handwriting, the square-C form developed further into a rounded form resembling a "C" (found in papyrus manuscripts as <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 01.svg|x16px]]</span>, on coins sometimes as <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 08.svg|x16px]]</span>). It then developed a downward tail at the end (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 02.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 03.svg|x16px]]</span>) and finally adopted a shape like a Latin "s" (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 05.svg|x16px]]</span>)<ref>{{cite book|last=Gardthausen|first=Victor Emil|author-link=Victor Gardthausen|title=Griechische Palaeographie, Vol. 2|place=Leipzig|publisher=B.G. Teubner|year=1879|page=367}}</ref> These cursive forms are also found in stone inscriptions in late antiquity.<ref name="tod"/>

=== Conflation with the στ ligature ===
[[File:Greek minuscule numerals Cod.Const.Pal.Vet.f96r.svg|thumb|right|Two instances of s-shaped numeral digamma in the number "9996 4/6" ({{lang|grc|{{overline|͵θϡϟϛ}} δʹ ϛʹ}}) in a minuscule mathematical manuscript, c.1100 AD. Below, a phrase containing two instances of the ligature "στ" ("{{lang|grc|ἔσται τὸ στερεὸν}}"), still distinguished from the numeral.]]
In the ninth and tenth centuries, the cursive shape digamma was visually conflated with a [[ligature (typography)|ligature]] of [[sigma]] (in its historical "lunate" form) and [[tau]] (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek uncial Sigma.svg|x14px]]</span> + <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek uncial Tau.svg|x14px]]</span> = <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 07.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 06.svg|x16px]]</span>).<ref>Gardthausen, ''Griechische Paleographie,'' p.238; {{cite book|first=Edward M.|last=Thompson|title=Handbook of Greek and Latin palaeography|url=https://archive.org/details/apl0171.0001.001.umich.edu|location=New York|publisher=D. Appleton|year=1893|page=[https://archive.org/details/apl0171.0001.001.umich.edu/page/104 104]}}</ref> The στ-ligature had become common in [[minuscule Greek|minuscule]] handwriting from the 9th century onwards. Both closed (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 07.svg|x16px]]</span>) and open (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 04.svg|x16px]]</span>) forms were subsequently used without distinction both for the ligature and for the numeral. The ligature took on the name of "''stigma''" or "''sti''", and the name stigma is today applied to it both in its textual and in the numeral function. The association between its two functions as a numeral and as a sign for "st" became so strong that in modern typographic practice in Greece, whenever the ϛʹ sign itself is not available, the letter sequences στʹ or ΣΤʹ are used instead for the number 6.

=== Typography ===
In western typesetting during the modern era, the numeral symbol was routinely represented by the same character as the ''stigma'' ligature (ϛ). In normal text, this ligature together with numerous others continued to be used widely until the early nineteenth century, following the style of earlier minuscule handwriting, but ligatures then gradually dropped out of use. The ''stigma'' ligature was among those that survived longest, but it too became obsolete in print after the mid-19th century. Today it is used only to represent the numeric digamma, and never to represent the sequence στ in text.

Along with the other special numeric symbols koppa and sampi, numeric digamma/stigma normally has no distinction between uppercase and lowercase forms,<ref name="holton">{{cite book|first1=David|last1=Holton|first2=Peter|last2=Mackridge|first3=Irene|last3=Philippaki-Warburton|title=Greek: a comprehensive grammar of the modern language|place=London|publisher=Routledge|year=1997|page=105|isbn=0-415-10001-1}}</ref> (while other alphabetic letters can be used as numerals in both cases). Distinct uppercase versions were occasionally used in the 19th century. Several different shapes of uppercase stigma can be found, with the lower end either styled as a small curved S-like hook (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Stigma uc S-shaped.svg|x16px]]</span>), or as a straight stem, the latter either with a serif (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa-Stigma uc.svg|x16px]]</span>) or without one (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa-Stigma uc 2.svg|x16px]]</span>). An alternative uppercase stylization in some twentieth-century fonts is <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Stigma uc ST.svg|x16px]]</span>, visually a ligature of Roman-style uppercase C and T.

The characters used for numeric digamma/stigma are distinguished in modern print from the character used to represent the ancient alphabetic digamma, the letter for the [w] sound. This is rendered in print by a Latin "F", or sometimes a variant of it specially designed to fit in typographically with Greek (<span style="font-family:serif">Ϝ</span>). It has a modern lowercase form (<span style="font-family:serif">ϝ</span>) that typically differs from Latin "f" by having two parallel horizontal strokes like the uppercase character, with the vertical stem often being somewhat slanted to the right or curved, and usually descending below the [[baseline (typography)|baseline]]. This character is used in Greek [[epigraphy]] to transcribe the text of ancient inscriptions that contain "Ϝ", and in linguistics and historical grammar when describing reconstructed proto-forms of Greek words that contained the sound {{IPA|/w/}}.

==Glyph confusion==
[[File:Greek capital numerals 01.svg|thumb|right|Example of a nineteenth-century font using S-shaped capital Stigma (first row) and G-shaped capital Koppa (second row).]]
[[File:Greek capital numerals 02.svg|thumb|right|Example of a nineteenth-century font using turned-lamedh-shaped capital Koppa and G-shaped capital Stigma.]]
[[File:Greek Stigma and Koppa font design.svg|thumb|right|Stigma and Koppa in modern fonts.]]

Throughout much of its history, the shape of digamma/stigma has often been very similar to that of other symbols, with which it can easily be confused. In ancient papyri, the cursive C-shaped form of numeric digamma is often indistinguishable from the C-shaped ("lunate") form that was then the common form of [[sigma]]. The similarity is still found today, since both the modern stigma (ϛ) and modern final sigma (ς) look identical or almost identical in most fonts; both are historically continuations of their ancient C-shaped forms with the addition of the same downward flourish. If the two characters are distinguished in print, the top loop of stigma tends to be somewhat larger and to extend farther to the right than that of final sigma. The two characters are, however, always distinguishable from the context in modern usage, both in numeric notation and in text: the final form of sigma never occurs in numerals (the number 200 being always written with the medial sigma, σ), and in normal Greek text the sequence "στ" can never occur word-finally.

The medieval s-like shape of digamma (<span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Digamma cursive 05.svg|x16px]]</span>) has the same shape as a contemporary abbreviation for {{lang|el|καὶ}} ("and").

Yet another case of glyph confusion exists in the printed uppercase forms, this time between stigma and the other numeral, [[koppa (letter)|koppa]] (90). In ancient and medieval handwriting, koppa developed from <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa normal.svg|x16px]]</span> through <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa cursive 01.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa cursive 02.svg|x16px]]</span>, <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa cursive 03.svg|x16px]]</span> to <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa cursive 04.svg|x16px]]</span>. The uppercase forms <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa-Stigma uc.svg|x16px]]</span> and <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa-Stigma uc 2.svg|x16px]]</span> can represent either koppa or stigma. Frequent confusion between these two values in contemporary printing was already noted by some commentators in the eighteenth century.<ref>{{cite book|author=Charles François Toustain|translator=Johann Christoph Adelung|title=Neues Lehrgebäude der Diplomatik, Vol.2|publisher=Weber|place=Erfurt|year=1761|page=137f|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CDpVAAAAcAAJ}}</ref> The ambiguity continues in modern fonts, many of which continue to have glyph similar to <span style="background-color: white;">[[File:Greek Koppa-Stigma uc.svg|x16px]]</span> for either koppa or stigma.

==Names==
The symbol has been called by a variety of different names, referring either to its alphabetic or its numeral function or both.

===Wau===
''Wau'' (variously rendered as ''vau'', ''waw'' or similarly in English) is the original name of the alphabetic letter for {{IPAslink|w}} in ancient Greek.<ref>{{cite book|first=Roger D.|last=Woodard|chapter=Phoinikeia grammata: an alphabet for the Greek language|title=A companion to the ancient Greek language|editor-first=Egbert J.|editor-last=Bakker|place=Oxford|publisher=Blackwell|year=2010|page=30f |isbn=978-1-4051-5326-3}}</ref><ref name="jeffery" /> It is often cited in its reconstructed [[acrophonic]] spelling "{{lang|el|ϝαῦ}}". This form itself is not historically attested in Greek inscriptions, but the existence of the name can be inferred from descriptions by contemporary Latin grammarians, who render it as ''vau''.<ref>Cf. ''Grammatici Latini'' (ed. Keil), 7.148.</ref> In later Greek, where both the letter and the sound it represented had become inaccessible, the name is rendered as {{lang|el|βαῦ}} or {{lang|el|οὐαῦ}}. In the 19th century, ''vau'' in English was a common name for the symbol ϛ in its numerical function, used by authors who distinguished it both from the alphabetic "digamma" and from ϛ as a στ ligature.<ref>{{cite book|title=Buttmann's larger Greek grammar: a Greek grammar for use of high schools and universities|first=Philipp|last=Buttmann|year=1839|publisher=Gould, Newman & Saxton|place=New York|page=22}}</ref>

===Digamma===
The name ''digamma'' was used in ancient Greek and is the most common name for the letter in its alphabetic function today. It literally means "double [[gamma]]" and is descriptive of the original letter's shape,  which looked like a ''Γ''  (gamma) placed on top of another.

===Episemon===
The name ''episēmon'' was used for the numeral symbol during the Byzantine era and is still sometimes used today, either as a name specifically for digamma/stigma, or as a generic term for the whole group of extra-alphabetic numeral signs (digamma, [[koppa (letter)|koppa]] and [[sampi]]). The Greek word "{{lang|grc|ἐπίσημον}}", from {{lang|grc|ἐπί-}} (''epi-'', "on") and {{lang|grc|σήμα}} (''sēma'', "sign"), literally means "a distinguishing mark", "a badge", but is also the neuter form of the related adjective "{{lang|grc|ἐπίσημος}}" ("distinguished", "remarkable"). This word was connected to the number "six" through early Christian mystical [[numerology]]. According to an account of the teachings of the heretic [[Marcus (Marcosian)|Marcus]] given by the church father [[Irenaeus]], the number six was regarded as a symbol of Christ, and was hence called "{{lang|grc|ὁ ἐπίσημος ἀριθμός}}" ("the outstanding number"); likewise, the name {{lang|grc|Ἰησοῦς}} (''Jesus''), having six letters, was "{{lang|grc|τὸ ἐπίσημον ὄνομα}}" ("the outstanding name"), and so on. The sixth-century treatise ''[[About the Mystery of the Letters]]'', which also links the six to Christ, calls the number sign ''to Episēmon'' throughout.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bandt|first=Cordula|title=Der Traktat "Vom Mysterium der Buchstaben." Kritischer Text mit Einführung, Übersetzung und Kommentar|place=Berlin|publisher=de Gruyter|year=2007}}</ref> The same name is still found in a fifteenth-century arithmetical manual by the Greek mathematician [[Nikolaos Rabdas]].<ref name="einarson">{{cite journal|last=Einarson|first=Benedict|title=Notes on the development of the Greek alphabet|journal=Classical Philology|volume=62|year=1967|pages=1–24; especially p.13 and 22|doi=10.1086/365183|s2cid=161310875}}</ref> It is also found in a number of western European accounts of the Greek alphabet written in Latin during the early Middle Ages. One of them is the work ''De loquela per gestum digitorum'', a didactic text about arithmetics attributed to the [[Venerable Bede]], where the three Greek numerals for 6, 90 and 900 are called "episimon", "cophe" and "enneacosis" respectively.<ref name="bede">{{cite book|last=Beda [Venerabilis]|title=Opera omnia, vol. 1|editor-last=Migne|editor-first=J.P.|place=Paris|chapter=De loquela per gestum digitorum|page=697}}</ref> From Beda, the term was adopted by the seventeenth century [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] [[Joseph Justus Scaliger]].<ref>Scaliger, Joseph Justus. ''Animadversiones in Chronologicis Eusebii'' pp. 110–116.</ref> However, misinterpreting Beda's reference, Scaliger applied the term ''episēmon'' not as a name proper for digamma/6 alone, but as a cover term for all three numeral letters. From Scaliger, the term found its way into modern academic usage in this new meaning, of referring to complementary numeral symbols standing outside the alphabetic sequence proper, in Greek and other similar scripts.<ref name="wace">{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century|last=Wace|first=Henry|year=1880|title=Marcosians}}</ref>

===Gabex or Gamex===

In one remark in the context of a biblical commentary, the 4th century scholar [[Ammonius of Alexandria (Christian philosopher)|Ammonius of Alexandria]] is reported to have mentioned that the numeral symbol for 6 was called ''gabex'' by his contemporaries.<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NaxJAAAAcAAJ&q=%CE%B3%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%AD%CE%BE&pg=PA479|title=γαβέξ|encyclopedia=Thesauros tes hellenikes glosses|first1=Henri|last1=Estienne|first2=Charles Benoit|last2=Hase|date=n.d.|place=Paris|volume=2|page=479}}</ref><ref>Migne, ''Patrologia Graeca'' 85, col. 1512 B.</ref> The same reference in Ammonius has alternatively been read as ''gam(m)ex'' by some modern authors.<ref name="jannaris">{{cite journal|last=Jannaris|first=A. N.|title=The Digamma, Koppa, and Sampi as numerals in Greek|journal=The Classical Quarterly|volume=1|year=1907|pages=37–40|doi=10.1017/S0009838800004936|s2cid=171007977 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2188121|access-date=2019-09-09|archive-date=2020-10-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003051931/https://zenodo.org/record/2188121|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Novum Testamentum graece|volume=1|first=Constantin|last=von Tischendorf|page=679|year=1859|publisher=sumptibus Adolphi Winter|place=Leipzig}}</ref> Ammonius as well as later theologians<ref>{{cite journal|first=Sebastian|last=Bartina|title=Ignotum episemon gabex|journal=Verbum Domini|volume=36|year=1958|pages=16–37}}</ref> discuss the symbol in the context of explaining the apparent contradiction and variant readings between the gospels in assigning the death of Jesus either to the "third hour" or "sixth hour", arguing that the one numeral symbol could easily have been substituted for the other through a scribal error.

===Stigma===
{{See also|Stigma (letter)}}
The name "stigma" ({{lang|grc|στίγμα}}) was originally a common Greek noun meaning "a mark, dot, puncture" or generally "a sign", from the verb στίζω ("to puncture").<ref>Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott. ''A Greek-English Lexicon.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940. s.v. "στίγμα"</ref> It had an earlier writing-related special meaning, being the name for a dot as a punctuation mark, used for instance to mark shortness of a syllable in the notation of rhythm.<ref>{{cite book|title=Latin Verse and European Song|url=https://archive.org/details/latinverseeurope00bear|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/latinverseeurope00bear/page/91 91]|first=William|last=Beare|author-link=William Beare (Latinist)|place=London|publisher=Methuen|year=1957}}</ref> It was then co-opted as a name specifically for the στ ligature, evidently because of the [[acrophony|acrophonic]] value of its initial ''st-'' as well as the analogy with the name of [[sigma (letter)|sigma]]. Other names coined according to the same analogical principle are ''sti''<ref>Samuel Brown Wylie, ''An introduction to the knowledge of Greek grammar'' (1838), p. 10.</ref> or ''stau''.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Barry |title=The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetic Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World |year=1999 |location=York Beach, Me. |publisher=Samuel Weis |page=17 |isbn=1-57863-110-6 }}</ref><ref>Thomas Shaw Brandreth, ''A dissertation on the metre of Homer'' (1844), p.135.</ref>

==Unicode==

* {{unichar|0376}}
* {{unichar|0377}}
* {{unichar|03DA}}
* {{unichar|03DB}}
* {{unichar|03DC}}
* {{unichar|03DD}}
* {{unichar|2C8A}}
* {{unichar|2C8B}}
* {{unichar|1D7CA}}
* {{unichar|1D7CB}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
* Peter T. Daniels – William Bright (edd.), ''The World's Writing Systems'', New York, Oxford University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-19-507993-0}}
* Jean Humbert, ''Histoire de la langue grecque'', Paris, 1972.
* Michel Lejeune, ''Phonétique historique du mycénien et du grec ancien'', Klincksieck, Paris, 1967. {{ISBN|2-252-03496-3}}
* "In Search of The Trojan War", pp.&nbsp;142–143,187 by Michael Wood, 1985, published by BBC.

==External links==
*Perseus Project: lexicon search for words [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?type=start&lookup=v&lang=greek starting with] or [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?type=substring&lookup=v&lang=greek containing] digamma
{{Greek language}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Greek letters]]