Statistics
 The Greek Alphabet

The early statisticians were classically trained, and Greek was their language of prestige reference. Greek in any case had been associated with mathematics since the time of Euclid. It is thus natural that Greek letters have been widely used as symbols for statistical quantities or procedures. Substituting the corresponding English letters no longer works well. At the risk of losing some readers whose viewing program is not equipped for it, we have kept the Greek letters, and represent them on these pages in the Symbol font. The complete Greek alphabet is given below, in that font, for convenient reference.

Name
Small
Capital

alpha
a
A

beta
b
B

gamma
g
G

delta
d
D

epsilon
e
E

zeta
z
Z

eta
h
H

theta
q
Q

iota
i
I

kappa
k
K

lambda
l
L

mu
m
M

nu
n
N

xi
x
X

omicron
o
O

pi
p
P

rho
r
R

sigma
s
S

tau
t
T

upsilon
u
U

phi
f
F

chi
c
C

psi
y
Y

omega
w
W

 

Statistics is Copyright © 2001- by E Bruce Brooks 

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14 Sept 2005 / Contact The Project / Exit to Statistics Home Page