BETA CODE

'Beta Code' is a method of representing, using only ASCII characters, characters and formatting found in ancient Greek texts (and other archaic languages). Its aim is to be not merely a romanization of the Greek alphabet, but to represent faithfully a wide variety of source texts -- including formatting as well rare or idiosyncratic characters.
Beta Code was developed by David W. Packard in the late 1970's and adopted by Thesaurus Linguae Graecae in 1981. It has become the standard for encoding polytonic Greek and has also been used by a number of other projects such as the Perseus Project (which encodes all its Ancient Greek texts using Beta code [1], though it can re-format them into a variety of systems for display), the Packard Humanities Institute, the Duke collection of Documentary Papyri, and the Greek Epigraphy Project at Cornell and the Ohio State University. Systems such as Sophokeys for typing Beta Code but producing Greek glyphs directly in the entered text (rather than when it is typeset or otherwise output) are increasingly popular, with the result that Beta Code, with some variations, has become a sort of universal default keymap for text entry in polytonic Greek.

Contents

Encoding

Greek Alphabet

Notes

Punctuation

Accents and Diacritics

External links

Encoding

Greek Alphabet

Standard Greek Alphabet with Beta Code equivalents

Upper Case	Beta Code	Character Name	Lower Case	Beta Code
Α	★ A	Alpha	α	A
Β	★ B	Beta	β	B
Γ	★ G	Gamma	γ	G
Δ	★ D	Delta	δ	D
Ε	★ E	Epsilon	ε	E
Ζ	★ Z	Zeta	ζ	Z
Η	★ H	Eta	η	H
Θ	★ Q	Theta	θ	Q
Ι	★ I	Iota	ι	I
Κ	★ K	Kappa	κ	K
Λ	★ L	Lambda	λ	L
Μ	★ M	Mu	μ	M
Ν	★ N	Nu	ν	N
Ξ	★ C	Xi	ξ	C
Ο	★ O	Omicron	ο	O
Π	★ P	Pi	π	P
Ρ	★ R	Rho	ρ	R
Σ	★ S	Medial Sigma	σ	S, S1
Σ	★ S	Final Sigma	ς	S, S2
Ϲ	★ S ( ★ S3)	Lunate Sigma	ϲ	S (S3)
Τ	★ T	Tau	τ	T
Υ	★ U	Upsilon	υ	U
Φ	★ F	Phi	φ	F
Χ	★ X	Chi	χ	X
Ψ	★ Y	Psi	ψ	Y
Ω	★ W	Omega	ω	W

Notes

★ The TLG Beta Code Manual uses upper-case ASCII letters to represent Greek letters. A variant (used by the Perseus Project) uses lower-case ASCII letters instead. In both cases, the unadorned ASCII letter represents a lower-case Greek letter, and an asterisk must be added to indicate an upper-case Greek letter.

★ In general, one encoding character 'S' for Greek sigma is sufficient; it is interpreted as a final sigma at the end of words or when followed by punctuation, and as a medial sigma in other positions. In cases where this auto-disambiguation is not correct, the specific codes 'S1' and 'S2' are available.

★ The codes '
★ S3' and 'S3' for lunate sigma are deprecated and do not occur in new texts; TLG regards the lunate sigma as a glyph variant of medial and final sigmas and unifies lunate sigma with these, using '
★ S' and 'S' (or, if necessary, 'S1' or 'S2', as appropriate), respectively.

Punctuation

Punctuation

Punctuation	Beta Code	Name
.	.	Period
,	,	Comma
·	:	Colon (Ano Stigme)
;	;	Question Mark
’	'	Apostrophe
‐	-	Hyphen
—	_	Dash

Accents and Diacritics

Polytonic Greek accents and diacritics

Diacritic	Beta Code	Name	Examples	Coded as
̓	)	Smooth breathing	ἐν	E)N
̔	(	Rough breathing	ὁ, οἱ	O(, OI(
́	/	Acute accent	πρός	PRO/S
͂	=	Circumflex accent	τῶν	TW=N
̀		Grave accent	πρὸς	PROS
̈	+	Diaeresis	προϊέναι	PROI+E/NAI
ͅ	|	Iota subscript	τῷ	TW=|
̄	%26	Macron	μαχαίρᾱς	MAXAI/RA%26S
̆	%27	Breve	μάχαιρᾰ	MA/XAIRA%27

External links

★ TLG Beta Code Summary

★ The TLG® Beta Code Manual 2004 (PDF file)

★ Sophokeys Polytonic Greek for Mac OS X