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The name of the letter was originally just "υ" (y; also called hy, hence "hyoid", meaning "shaped like the letter υ"), but the name changed to "υ ψιλόν" u psilon 'plain υ' to distinguish it from οι, which had come to have the same [y] pronunciation.
All forms of the Greek alphabet were originally based on the shared inventory of the 22 symbols of the Phoenician alphabet, with the exception of the letter Samekh, whose Greek counterpart Xi (Ξ) was used only in a subgroup of Greek alphabets, and with the common addition of Upsilon (Υ) for the vowel /u, ū/.
Greek letters are used in mathematics, science, engineering, and other areas where mathematical notation is used as symbols for constants, special functions, and also conventionally for variables representing certain quantities. In these contexts, the capital letters and the small letters represent distinct and unrelated entities.
The symbol ϵ (U+03F5) is designated specifically for the lunate form, used as a technical symbol. The symbol ϑ ("script theta") is a cursive form of theta (θ), frequent in handwriting, and used with a specialized meaning as a technical symbol. The symbol ϰ ("kappa symbol") is a cursive form of kappa (κ), used as a technical symbol.
The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are used for unmodified symbols. In Unicode, some of the symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA [clarification needed]; the others use the symbols from the Greek section. Examples:
X was named /eks/ rather than /kseː/, as /ks/ could not begin a word in Latin (and possibly Etruscan). When the letter Y was introduced into Latin, it was probably called hy /hyː/ as in Greek (the name upsilon being not yet in use), but was changed to i Graeca ("Greek i") as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing the sounds /i/ and /y/.
A FBI document obtained by Wikileaks details the symbols and logos used by pedophiles to identify sexual preferences. According to the document members of pedophilic organizations use of ...
These symbols describe the features of a language above the level of individual consonants and vowels, that is, at the level of syllable, word or phrase. These include prosody , pitch, length , stress , intensity, tone and gemination of the sounds of a language, as well as the rhythm and intonation of speech. [ 72 ]