Digamma - Glyph Confusion

Glyph Confusion

Throughout much of its history, the shape of digamma/stigma has often been very similar to that of other symbols, with which it can easily be confused. In ancient papyri, the cursive C-shaped form of numeric digamma is often indistinguishable from the C-shaped ("lunate") form that was then the common form of sigma. The similarity is still found today, since both the modern stigma (ϛ) and modern final sigma (ς) look identical or almost identical in most fonts; both are historically continuations of their ancient C-shaped forms with the addition of the same downward flourish. If the two characters are distinguished in print, the top loop of stigma tends to be somewhat larger and to extend farther to the right than that of final sigma. The two characters are, however, always distinguishable from the context in modern usage, both in numeric notation and in text: the final form of sigma never occurs in numerals (the number 200 being always written with the medial sigma, σ), and in normal Greek text the sequence "στ" can never occur word-finally.

The medieval s-like shape of digamma has the same shape as a contemporary abbreviation for καὶ ("and").

Yet another case of glyph confusion exists in the printed uppercase forms, this time between stigma and the other numeral, koppa (90). In ancient and medieval handriting, koppa developed from through, to . The uppercase forms and can represent either koppa or stigma. Frequent confusion between these two values in contemporary printing was already noted by some commentators in the eighteenth century. The ambiguity continues in modern fonts, many of which continue to have glyph similar to for either koppa or stigma.