5 Appendix: the Greek alphabet

Mathematicians often use Greek letters as well as the more familiar Latin letters used to write English. The letters of the Greek alphabet are listed below, along with their names, and how they are typically pronounced in English. (Note that many of these pronunciations are often different to how Greek speakers say them.)

Lower	Upper	Name	Pronunciation
case	case
$\alpha$		alpha	AL-fa
$\beta$		beta	BEE-ta
$\gamma$	$\Gamma$	gamma	GAM-ma
$\delta$	$\Delta$	delta	DEL-ta
$\epsilon$ (or $\varepsilon$ )		epsilon	EP-si-lon
$\zeta$		zeta	ZEE-ta
$\eta$		eta	EE-ta
$\theta$ (or $\vartheta$ )	$\Theta$	theta	THEE-ta (soft th, as in think)
$\iota$		iota	eye-OH-ta
$\kappa$		kappa	KAP-pa
$\lambda$	$\Lambda$	lambda	LAM-da
$\mu$		mu	myoo (rhymes with few)
$\nu$		nu	nyoo (rhymes with few)
$\xi$	$\Xi$	xi	ksy (rhymes with pie)
o		omicron	OH-mi-cron
$\pi$	$\Pi$	pi	pie
$\rho$		rho	roe (rhymes with go)
$\sigma$	$\Sigma$	sigma	SIG-ma
$\tau$		tau	rhymes with now
$\upsilon$		upsilon	OOP-si-lon
$\phi$ (or $\varphi$ )	$\Phi$	phi	fy (rhymes with pie)
$\chi$		chi	ky (rhymes with pie)
$\psi$	$\Psi$	psi	psy (rhymes with pie); the p is pronounced
$\omega$	$\Omega$	omega	OH-me-ga

Many upper case Greek letters look like upper case Latin letters. For example, an upper case $\alpha$ is $A$ . These letters are not used in mathematics or, rather, are interpreted as Latin rather than Greek letters. For that reason, they are not shown in the table.