Letters That Can (and Can’t) End a Greek Word

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Introduction

Greek words can end in the following sounds only:

• vowels (α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω )
• the glides /y/ and /w/ (represented by ι and υ, respectively)
• the consonants ν, ρ, and ς (including ξ /ks/ and ψ /ps/)

That is all.

If a word ends in a consonant other than ν, ρ, or ς, that consonant drops. For instance:

• the base γάλακτ/ means “milk.” Nothing is added to make γάλακτ/ the subject of a sentence (the nominative case). But τ can’t end a Greek word, so it drops: γάλακ. Moreover, κ can’t end a Greek word, so it too drops, leaving a final form γάλα.

The preposition ἐκ, “from, out of” appears to be an exception, but it is not. It is an enclitic, which means that it combines with the word that follows. So ἐκ βασιλέος, “from the king,” is treated as a single word, as if it were spelled ἐκβασιλέος.

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Intermediate

The orthography in some manuscripts exhibit assimilation of ν to μ across words. For instance, you might find τὸν βασιλέα written τὀμ βασιλέα, where the dental nasal ν assimilates to the labial stop β by becoming the labial nasal μ. This should be the only sort of instance in which you find of a violation of the above rules in a classical text, and you will only find it in the occasional manuscript, not in a modern printed text. For instance, note the assimilation of δογμάτων (δόγματ/ων, “of beliefs, opinions”) to δογμάτωμ preceding φανταστικῶν in a papyrus fragment from Herculaneum, a town destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE:

In Koine Greek, the above does not apply. So for instance a biblical name like David is spelled Δαυιδ, no accent. For more, see the names in Chronicles 1.1-34, a book of the Hebrew Bible:

Some of these names will be familiar if you transliterate them into the Latin alphabet.