Greek Perispomeni

It is the Greek circumflex accent, marking pitch in polytonic Greek.

In Ancient Greek, it marked a high pitch that fell within one long vowel sound. Polytonic Greek is the spelling system that combines vowels with different accent marks and marks that show whether a word begins with an h sound.

Some papyrus manuscripts—texts written on plant-fiber sheets—show accent marks in the early Hellenistic period, first as reading aids. A later account credits Aristophanes of Byzantium, a scholar in Alexandria, with devising the system, but that story's historical basis is doubtful. Regularly marking every word became established in Byzantine editions in the ninth and tenth centuries.

How do I type Greek perispomeni?

Use a Unicode polytonic Greek keyboard for words.

Type the vowel, then use the layout's perispomeni key or accent key; the exact sequence depends on the layout. Choose a font with polytonic Greek coverage so the accents and breathing marks appear.

For a standalone ῀, select Greek perispomeni in your operating system's Unicode character map or symbol picker. The combining form ͂ attaches to a vowel in a word; ῀ is the spacing form for when the mark stands alone.

Why does Greek perispomeni look different across fonts?

A font can draw the same Greek mark with different outlines.

It may look like a roof-shaped circumflex, an inverted breve, a wave, or occasionally a macron. These outlines can represent the same Greek mark; shape alone cannot identify a different character.