Transliteration method

Ancient Greek is usually printed in a Greek alphabet. Many readers know the sounds but not every letter-shape. This site therefore writes a second line in Latin letters, using a scholarly transcription rather than a phonetic respelling of modern Greek.

The conversion runs in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent to a server. The same rules are used for the paste tool and for the full Iliad and Odyssey.

Vowels

Short epsilon and omicron stay e and o. Long eta and omega are marked ē and ō so that metre remains visible. Upsilon is y except in diphthongs (au, eu, ou, ui), which keep their conventional Latin shapes. Iota subscript is written as a trailing i.

Breathings and diaeresis

A rough breathing becomes a leading h: Ἕκτωρ is Hektōr, ῥοδοδάκτυλος is rhododaktylos. Smooth breathing is silent. Diaeresis is kept as ï so that Πηληϊάδεω does not collapse into a diphthong: Pēlēïadeō.

Consonants

Aspirated stops are th, ph, ch (theta, phi, chi). Xi and psi are x and ps. Gamma before another velar is treated as a nasal, so ἄγγελος is angelos. Final sigma and lunate sigma are both s.

Layout

Printed Homer is often set in paragraphs of five verses. The reader follows that habit. On a wide screen the English sits in a third column beside each group; on a phone the same English paragraph appears under the five Greek lines and their letters, so a wrapped sentence cannot drift onto the previous verse.

Butler’s prose is packed by whole sentences into those five-line groups. The aim is that a sentence naming Hades stays with the Greek that names Hades, not with the line above.

Paste your own Greek on the home page, or open a book from the catalogues. For who runs the site, see About.