Perispomene
The perispomene ( ancient Greek περισπωμένη perispōménē , neo-Greek perispoméni pronounced, from περισπάω 'take something away, subtract something' ) is a tone accent mark of the Greek script in the polytonic spelling, which is officially no longer used in today's Greek. In German school grammars , the term “ circumflex ” is mostly used .
Since Ancient Greek was a tonal language and the meaning of words changed depending on the pitches assigned to a syllable , the identification of the pitch was important. In the 3rd century BC Therefore the perispomene was introduced to mark a certain pitch and pitch that is no longer known today. The vowel marked in this way differed from those marked by grave accents and acute accents .
The Perispomene is in print mostly as a tilde ( shown), but can also like a circumflex ( ^ ) or as a macron ( ¯ ) are cut. In the transliteration according to DIN 31634, the circumflex is then used in Latin script .
In school grammars, words emphasized with a perispomenon are referred to as a perispomenon ( περισπώμενον ) or propomenon ( προπερισπώμενον ), depending on whether the accent is on the last or penultimate syllable.