Editing Omicron (section)

==History==

[[File:Protos Axon (Draco).png|thumb|Detail from a fifth-century&nbsp;BCE inscription of [[Draco (lawgiver)|Draco]]'s law on homicide, showing the use of '''O''' rather than '''Ω''' in the phrase "ΠΡΟΤΟΣ ΑΧΣΟΝ" ({{math|πρώτος ἄξων}}, "first axon")]]

In the earliest Greek inscriptions, only five vowel letters '''A''' '''E''' '''I''' '''O''' '''Y''' were used. Vowel length was undifferentiated, with '''O''' representing both the short vowel /o/ and the long vowels /o:/ and /ɔː/.<ref name=Sihler-1995>{{cite book |first=Andrew |last=Sihler |year=1995 |title=New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-537336-3}}</ref>{{rp|style=ama|page= 19}} Later, in classical Attic Greek orthography, the three vowels were represented differently, with '''O''' representing short /o/, the new letter '''Ω''' representing long /ɔː/, and the so-called "spurious diphthong" '''OY''' representing long /o:/.<ref name=Sihler-1995/>{{rp|style=ama|pages= 56, 71}}

Although the Greeks took the character '''O''' from the Phoenician letter ''`ayin'', they did not borrow its Phoenician name. Instead, the name of the letter '''O''' in classical Attic times was simply the long version of its characteric sound: {{math|οὖ}} (pronounced /o:/) (that of '''Ω''' was likewise {{math|ὦ}}).<ref name="allen">{{cite book |first=W. Sidney |last=Allen |year=1987 |title=Vox Graeca |publisher=Cambridge University Press |edition=3rd |isbn=978-0-521-33555-3 |page=172}}</ref>{{efn|
This is confirmed by the text of the so-called ''Letter Tragedy'' of the fifth-century&nbsp;BCE comic poet [[Callias (comic poet)|Callias]], and also by a passage in Plato's ''Cratylus'', where [[Socrates]] states:
:[W]hen we speak of the letters of the alphabet, you know, we speak their names, not merely the letters themselves, except in the case of four: '''E''', '''Y''', '''O''', and '''Ω'''.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Plato]] |title=Cratylus |at=393}}</ref>
}} By the second and third centuries AD, distinctions between long and short vowels began to disappear in pronunciation, leading to confusion between '''O''' and '''Ω''' in spelling. It was at this time that the new names of {{math|ὂ μικρόν}} ("small O") for '''O''' {{math|ὦ μέγα}} ("great O") for '''Ω''' were introduced.<ref name="allen"/>