Editing Iota subscript (section)

==Usage==
[[File:Greek iota placement 02.svg|thumb|upright=0.73|Archaizing spelling with adscripts instead of subscripts. In pre-classical times, ancient Greek had long-vowel diphthongs, which evolved into monophthongs, mostly during the classical period and after. They continued to be written as diphthongs until the medieval period, when the iota subscript was introduced, reflecting the change in pronunciation.]]
{{multiple image
   | direction = vertical
   | width     = 160
   | footer    = Different styles of treating mute iota with capital letters
   | image1    = Greek iota placement 03.svg
   | alt1      = Adscript iota after initial capital letter
   | caption1  = Titlecase
   | image2    = Greek iota placement 04.svg
   | alt2      = Full-sized capital Iota adscripts
   | image3    = Greek iota placement 05.svg
   | alt3      = lower-case iota adscripts between uppercase letters
   | image4    = Greek iota placement 06.svg
   | alt4      = subscript iota diacritics under capital letters
   | caption4  = Uppercase
  }}

The iota subscript occurs most frequently in certain [[Ancient Greek grammar|inflectional affixes of ancient Greek]], especially in the [[dative case|dative]] endings of many nominal forms (e.g. {{lang|grc|τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, τῇ πολιτείᾳ, τῇ γλώσσῃ}}) as well as in certain verb forms of the [[subjunctive mood]] (e.g. {{lang|grc|λύσῃς, -ῃ}}). Besides these it also occurs in the roots of certain words and names, for instance {{lang|grc|ᾠδή}}, ''[[ode]]'' (and its derivatives: {{lang|grc|ᾠδεῖον}}, ''[[odeon (building)|odeon]]''; {{lang|grc|τραγῳδία}}, ''[[tragedy]]'' etc.); {{lang|grc|ᾍδης}}, ''[[Hades]]''; {{lang|grc|Θρᾴκη}}, ''[[Thrace]]''.

The rare long diphthong {{lang|grc|ῡι}} might logically have been treated the same way, and the works of [[Eustathius of Thessalonica]] provide an instance of {{lang|grc|υ}} with iota subscript (in the word {{lang|grc|ὑπόγυͅον}}),<ref>Eustathius of Thessalonica, ''Commentary on the Iliad'', III 439.</ref> but this never became the convention (the same word being spelled by other writers as {{lang|grc|ὑπόγυιον}} or {{lang|grc| ὑπόγυον}}).

The iota subscript is today considered an obligatory feature in the spelling of ancient Greek, but its usage is subject to some variation. In some modern editions of classical texts, the original pronunciation of long diphthongs is represented by the use of iota adscript, with accents and breathing marks placed on the first vowel.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ritter |first1=R. M. |title=New Hart's Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors |date=2005 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-165049-9 |pages=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3uwGtj8i_vkC&pg=PA217 |language=en}}</ref> The same is generally true for works dealing with epigraphy, paleography or other philological contexts where adherence to original historical spellings and linguistic correctness is considered important.

Different conventions exist for the treatment of subscript/adscript iota with uppercase letters. In Western printing, the most common practice is to use subscript diacritics only in lowercase environments and to use an adscript (i.e. a normal full-sized iota glyph) instead whenever the host letter is capitalized. When this happens in a mixed-case spelling environment (i.e. with only the first letter of a word capitalized, as in proper names and at the beginning of a sentence), then the adscript iota regularly takes the shape of the normal lowercase iota letter (e.g. {{lang|grc|ᾠδεῖον}} → {{lang|grc|Ὠιδεῖον}}). In an all-capitals environment, the adscript is also regularly capitalized ({{lang|grc|ΩΙΔΕΙΟΝ}}). In Greece, a more common convention is to print subscript diacritics both with lowercase and uppercase letters alike. Yet another, intermediate convention is to use lowercase adscript iotas both for mixed-case and for all-capitals words (e.g. {{lang|grc|ΩιΔΕΙΟΝ}}), or to use a special glyph in the shape of a smaller capital iota in the latter case ({{lang|grc|2=Ω<span style="font-size:65%;">Ι</span>ΔΕΙΟΝ}}).<ref name="nicholas">{{cite web|first=Nick|last=Nicholas|title=Titlecase and Adscripts|url=http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/unicode_adscript.html|access-date=5 August 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151026160832/http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/unicode/unicode_adscript.html|archive-date=26 October 2015}}</ref>

In [[modern Greek]], subscript iota was generally retained in use in the spelling of the archaizing ''[[Katharevousa]]''. It can also be found regularly in older printed [[Demotic Greek|Demotic]] in the 19th and early 20th century, but it is generally absent from the modern spelling of present-day [[Varieties of Modern Greek#Standard Modern Greek|standard Greek]]. Even when present-day Greek is spelled in the traditional polytonic system, the number of instances where a subscript could be written is much smaller than in older forms of the language, because most of its typical grammatical environments no longer occur: the old dative case is not used in modern Greek except in a few fossilized phrases (e.g. {{lang|el|ἐν τῷ μεταξύ}} "in the meantime"; {{lang|el|δόξα τῷ θεῷ}} "thank God!"), and the old spellings with {{lang|el|-ῃς/ῃ}} in subjunctive verbs have been analogically replaced by those of the indicatives with {{lang|el|-εις/-ει}} (e.g. {{lang|el|θα γράψῃς}} → {{lang|el|θα γράψεις}}). In the monotonic standard orthography, subscript iota is not used.