Greek smooth breathing mark

It marks an opening vowel as starting without an h sound.

Greek psili, also called smooth breathing, marks a word-initial vowel—or a diphthong, two vowels pronounced together—with no added h sound; rough breathing ῾ marks one. On a diphthong, psili sits over the second vowel; beside an initial capital vowel, it sits to the left.

Breathing marks took shape among scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Hellenistic period, the centuries after Alexander the Great's conquests. Greek papyrus manuscripts show early, selective use. A story in two Paris manuscripts from the 1500s credits Aristophanes of Byzantium, a Greek scholar, with inventing the marks; the account's history is doubtful. In editions from the Byzantine Empire, the eastern Roman Empire, fuller use of accents and breathing marks became regular in the ninth and tenth centuries. Modern Greek omits breathings in the single-accent monotonic spelling adopted for education in 1982; a modern Greek text with a breathing mark is using polytonic or historical spelling.

How do I type Greek smooth breathing?

Choose a polytonic Greek keyboard; key order depends on the layout.

As of 2026, the order differs by input: on macOS's Greek - Polytonic layout, press apostrophe before the vowel; in greek.tools, type the vowel then ).

In ordinary Greek text, the breathing is a combining mark attached to its vowel; isolated ᾿ is a spacing character. If an acute or grave accent shares the vowel, encode the breathing before the accent. Reversing that order can render the marks incorrectly.