Editing Digamma (section)

==Names==
The symbol has been called by a variety of different names, referring either to its alphabetic or its numeral function or both.

===Wau===
''Wau'' (variously rendered as ''vau'', ''waw'' or similarly in English) is the original name of the alphabetic letter for {{IPAslink|w}} in ancient Greek.<ref>{{cite book|first=Roger D.|last=Woodard|chapter=Phoinikeia grammata: an alphabet for the Greek language|title=A companion to the ancient Greek language|editor-first=Egbert J.|editor-last=Bakker|place=Oxford|publisher=Blackwell|year=2010|page=30f |isbn=978-1-4051-5326-3}}</ref><ref name="jeffery" /> It is often cited in its reconstructed [[acrophonic]] spelling "{{lang|el|ϝαῦ}}". This form itself is not historically attested in Greek inscriptions, but the existence of the name can be inferred from descriptions by contemporary Latin grammarians, who render it as ''vau''.<ref>Cf. ''Grammatici Latini'' (ed. Keil), 7.148.</ref> In later Greek, where both the letter and the sound it represented had become inaccessible, the name is rendered as {{lang|el|βαῦ}} or {{lang|el|οὐαῦ}}. In the 19th century, ''vau'' in English was a common name for the symbol ϛ in its numerical function, used by authors who distinguished it both from the alphabetic "digamma" and from ϛ as a στ ligature.<ref>{{cite book|title=Buttmann's larger Greek grammar: a Greek grammar for use of high schools and universities|first=Philipp|last=Buttmann|year=1839|place=New York|page=22}}</ref>

===Digamma===
The name ''digamma'' was used in ancient Greek and is the most common name for the letter in its alphabetic function today. It literally means "double [[gamma]]" and is descriptive of the original letter's shape,  which looked like a ''Γ''  (gamma) placed on top of another.

===Episemon===
The name ''episēmon'' was used for the numeral symbol during the Byzantine era and is still sometimes used today, either as a name specifically for digamma/stigma, or as a generic term for the whole group of extra-alphabetic numeral signs (digamma, [[koppa (letter)|koppa]] and [[sampi]]). The Greek word "{{lang|grc|ἐπίσημον}}", from {{lang|grc|ἐπί-}} (''epi-'', "on") and {{lang|grc|σήμα}} (''sēma'', "sign"), literally means "a distinguishing mark", "a badge", but is also the neuter form of the related adjective "{{lang|grc|ἐπίσημος}}" ("distinguished", "remarkable"). This word was connected to the number "six" through early Christian mystical [[numerology]]. According to an account of the teachings of the heretic [[Marcus (Marcosian)|Marcus]] given by the church father [[Irenaeus]], the number six was regarded as a symbol of Christ, and was hence called "{{lang|grc|ὁ ἐπίσημος ἀριθμός}}" ("the outstanding number"); likewise, the name {{lang|grc|Ἰησοῦς}} (''Jesus''), having six letters, was "{{lang|grc|τὸ ἐπίσημον ὄνομα}}" ("the outstanding name"), and so on. The sixth-century treatise ''[[About the Mystery of the Letters]]'', which also links the six to Christ, calls the number sign ''to Episēmon'' throughout.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bandt|first=Cordula|title=Der Traktat "Vom Mysterium der Buchstaben." Kritischer Text mit Einführung, Übersetzung und Kommentar|place=Berlin|publisher=de Gruyter|year=2007}}</ref> The same name is still found in a fifteenth-century arithmetical manual by the Greek mathematician [[Nikolaos Rabdas]].<ref name="einarson">{{cite journal|last=Einarson|first=Benedict|title=Notes on the development of the Greek alphabet|journal=Classical Philology|volume=62|year=1967|pages=1–24; especially p.13 and 22|doi=10.1086/365183|s2cid=161310875}}</ref> It is also found in a number of western European accounts of the Greek alphabet written in Latin during the early Middle Ages. One of them is the work ''De loquela per gestum digitorum'', a didactic text about arithmetics attributed to the [[Venerable Bede]], where the three Greek numerals for 6, 90 and 900 are called "episimon", "cophe" and "enneacosis" respectively.<ref name="bede">{{cite book|last=Beda [Venerabilis]|title=Opera omnia, vol. 1|editor-last=Migne|editor-first=J.P.|place=Paris|chapter=De loquela per gestum digitorum|page=697}}</ref> From Beda, the term was adopted by the seventeenth century [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] [[Joseph Justus Scaliger]].<ref>Scaliger, Joseph Justus. ''Animadversiones in Chronologicis Eusebii'' pp. 110–116.</ref> However, misinterpreting Beda's reference, Scaliger applied the term ''episēmon'' not as a name proper for digamma/6 alone, but as a cover term for all three numeral letters. From Scaliger, the term found its way into modern academic usage in this new meaning, of referring to complementary numeral symbols standing outside the alphabetic sequence proper, in Greek and other similar scripts.<ref name="wace">{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century|last=Wace|first=Henry|year=1880|title=Marcosians}}</ref>

===Gabex or Gamex===

In one remark in the context of a biblical commentary, the 4th century scholar [[Ammonius of Alexandria (Christian philosopher)|Ammonius of Alexandria]] is reported to have mentioned that the numeral symbol for 6 was called ''gabex'' by his contemporaries.<ref>{{cite dictionary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NaxJAAAAcAAJ&q=%CE%B3%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%AD%CE%BE&pg=PA479|title=γαβέξ|encyclopedia=Thesauros tes hellenikes glosses|first1=Henri|last1=Estienne|first2=Charles Benoit|last2=Hase|year=n.d.|place=Paris|volume=2|page=479}}</ref><ref>Migne, ''Patrologia Graeca'' 85, col. 1512 B.</ref> The same reference in Ammonius has alternatively been read as ''gam(m)ex'' by some modern authors.<ref name="jannaris">{{cite journal|last=Jannaris|first=A. N.|title=The Digamma, Koppa, and Sampi as numerals in Greek|journal=The Classical Quarterly|volume=1|year=1907|pages=37–40|doi=10.1017/S0009838800004936|s2cid=171007977 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2188121|access-date=2019-09-09|archive-date=2020-10-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003051931/https://zenodo.org/record/2188121|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Novum Testamentum graece|volume=1|first=Constantin|last=von Tischendorf|page=679|year=1859|place=Leipzig}}</ref> Ammonius as well as later theologians<ref>{{cite journal|first=Sebastian|last=Bartina|title=Ignotum episemon gabex|journal=Verbum Domini|volume=36|year=1958|pages=16–37}}</ref> discuss the symbol in the context of explaining the apparent contradiction and variant readings between the gospels in assigning the death of Jesus either to the "third hour" or "sixth hour", arguing that the one numeral symbol could easily have been substituted for the other through a scribal error.

===Stigma===
{{See also|Stigma (letter)}}
The name "stigma" ({{lang|grc|στίγμα}}) was originally a common Greek noun meaning "a mark, dot, puncture" or generally "a sign", from the verb στίζω ("to puncture").<ref>Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott. ''A Greek-English Lexicon.'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940. s.v. "στίγμα"</ref> It had an earlier writing-related special meaning, being the name for a dot as a punctuation mark, used for instance to mark shortness of a syllable in the notation of rhythm.<ref>{{cite book|title=Latin Verse and European Song|url=https://archive.org/details/latinverseeurope00bear|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/latinverseeurope00bear/page/91 91]|first=William|last=Beare|author-link=William Beare (Latinist)|place=London|publisher=Methuen|year=1957}}</ref> It was then co-opted as a name specifically for the στ ligature, evidently because of the [[acrophony|acrophonic]] value of its initial ''st-'' as well as the analogy with the name of [[sigma (letter)|sigma]]. Other names coined according to the same analogical principle are ''sti''<ref>Samuel Brown Wylie, ''An introduction to the knowledge of Greek grammar'' (1838), p. 10.</ref> or ''stau''.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Barry |title=The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetic Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World |year=1999 |location=York Beach, Me. |publisher=Samuel Weis |page=17 |isbn=1-57863-110-6 }}</ref><ref>Thomas Shaw Brandreth, ''A dissertation on the metre of Homer'' (1844), p.135.</ref>