Editing Omega (section)

==History==
Ω was not part of the early (8th century BC) [[Archaic Greek alphabets|Greek alphabets]]. It was introduced in the late 7th century BC in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor to denote a [[vowel length|long]] [[open-mid back rounded vowel]] {{IPA|[ɔː]}}. It is a variant of omicron (Ο), broken up at the side ([[File:Greek Omega 09.svg|x16px]]), with the edges subsequently turned outward ({{GrGl|Omega 09}}, {{GrGl|Omega 05}}, {{GrGl|Omega 03}}, {{GrGl|Omega 07}}).<ref name="Jeffery37f">Anne Jeffery (1961), ''The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece'', pp. 37–38.</ref> The Dorian city of [[Knidos]] as well as a few Aegean islands, namely [[Paros]], [[Thasos]] and [[Melos]], chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for the short and a closed circle for the long {{IPA|/o/}}.<ref name=Jeffery37f/>

The name Ωμέγα is [[Medieval Greek|Byzantine]]; in [[Ancient Greek|Classical Greek]], the letter was called ''ō'' ({{lang|grc|ὦ}}) (pronounced /ɔ̂ː/), whereas the omicron was called ''ou'' ({{lang|grc|οὖ}}) (pronounced /ôː/).<ref>Herbert Weir Smyth ''A Greek Grammar for Colleges'' §1.</ref> The modern lowercase shape goes back to the [[uncial]] form [[File:Greek uncial Omega.svg|x14px]], a form that developed during the 3rd century BC in ancient handwriting on papyrus, from a flattened-out form of the letter ([[File:Greek Omega 08.svg|x16px]]) that had its edges curved even further upward.<ref>Edward M. Thompson (1912), ''Introduction to Greek and Latin Paleography'', Oxford: Clarendon, p. 144.</ref>

In addition to the Greek alphabet, Omega was also adopted into the [[early Cyrillic alphabet]] (see [[omega (Cyrillic)|Cyrillic omega]] (Ѡ, ѡ)). A [[Raetic alphabet|Raetic]] variant is conjectured to be at the origin or parallel evolution of the [[Elder Futhark]] [[ᛟ]].

Omega was also adopted into the Latin alphabet, as a letter of the 1982 revision to the [[African reference alphabet]]. It's in sparse use (see [[Latin omega]]).