In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing (Ancient Greek: δασὺ πνεῦμα dasỳ pneûma or δασεῖα daseîa; Modern Greek: δασεία dasía; Latin spīritus asper), is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an /h/ sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even after the Hellenistic period, when the sound disappeared from the Greek language. In the monotonic orthography of Modern Greek phonology, in use since 1982, it is not used at all.
Contents
The absence of an /h/ sound is marked by the smooth breathing.
History
The rough breathing comes from the left-hand half of the letter H. In some Greek dialects, the letter was used for [h] (Heta), and this usage survives in the Latin letter H. In other dialects, it was used for the vowel [ɛː] (Eta), and this usage survives in the modern system of writing Ancient Greek, and in Modern Greek.
Usage
The rough breathing ( ῾ ) is placed over an initial vowel, or over the second vowel of an initial diphthong.
An upsilon or rho at the beginning of a word always takes a rough breathing.
Inside a word
In some writing conventions, the rough breathing is written on the second of two rhos in the middle of a word. This is transliterated as rrh in Latin.
In crasis (contraction of two words), when the second word has a rough breathing, the contracted vowel does not take a rough breathing. Instead, the consonant before the contracted vowel changes to the aspirated equivalent (i.e., π → φ, τ → θ, κ → χ), if possible, and the contracted vowel takes the apostrophe or coronis (identical to the smooth breathing).
Under the archaizing influence of Katharevousa, this change has been preserved in modern Greek neologisms coined on the basis of ancient words, e.g. πρωθυπουργός ("prime minister"), from πρῶτος ("first") and ὑπουργός ("minister"), where the latter was originally aspirated.