Rules of end-of-line hyphenation and syllabification in Greek

In this article we are going to cover the main rules of how to hyphenate words at the end of a line and how to correctly divide any Greek word into syllables.

Why do we need to know it? It is interesting and it expands our knowledge!

These rules will come in useful if your child goes to a primary school in Greece, and as a result, you are forced to do ‘easy pease’ home tasks with them. You also need them to divide words correctly when writing letters, essays, various applications and so on.

How will you pronounce the Greek word ‘toy’ παιχνίδι dividing it into syllables? I would do it just the way I learnt how to at my school in Russia: παιχ-νί-δι. And guess what? It’s wrong. The right way is παι-χνί-δι. How do you think the word ουσιαστικό «noun» should be syllabicated? Ουσ-ιασ-τι-κό? Wrong again. It should go like ου-σια-στι-κό.

If you make similar mistakes, this article is for you.

A little background

I remember when i just started to learn Greek, I once asked my teacher, "Κύριε, how do split a word at the end of a line?" The question sounded pretty basic to me.

The teacher thought a little and then said, "Παιδάκι μου, just shift the whole word to a new line, you don't need to divide it."

I felt offended. It is just impossible that I am not smart enough to syllabify a word!

I repeated my question, but never received any answer

Not until many years later did, I get back to this topic. My daughter started a Greek school, and the question, “ how do you syllabify a word” became relevant for me once again.

Having read relevant literature for primary school students (native speakers, by the way), I came to realise why my first teacher wasn’t enthusiastic about answering my question. Back then I was only a beginner in Greek, and it turns out that in order to syllabify words in the correct way you have to have quite a broad vocabulary and ‘feel’ the language!

Well, first things first.

So, here are the rules for dividing words into syllables in Greek:

Each syllable must contain a vowel: ή-πος.

A syllable can be just a vowel, i.e. if there are two vowels in a row, they will be divided as : α-ε-τός. The exceptions are all digraphs, diphthongs and catachresis diphthongs of the Greek language (the rules for their writing are given below in the paragraphs 9, 10, 11).

A consonant between two vowels always forms a syllable with a second vowel: α-γά-πη, έ-χω.

Double or identical consonants are always divided: φεγ-γά-ρι, άγ-γε-λος, άμ-μος, σύν-νε-φο, άλ-λος, Ελ-λά-δα.

Two consonants are NOT divided if a Greek word can begin with them or with their combination.

Let’s get back to the word παιχνίδι (toy) which started this article. There are consonants χν in the middle, and can a Greek word start with them? Yes! For instance, χνούδι. It means that these letters won’t be divided, and the word will be written like παι-χνί-δι.

Another example is πατρίδα (motherland), and let’s quickly come up with a word which starts with «τρ», and it probably will be τρένο. So, we write it like πα-τρί-δα.

Two consonants are divided if a Greek word cannot begin with them. For example, γιορτή. There are no words starting with ρτ. We syllabify it like ιορ-τή.

The rule of ‘finding’ also applies when there are three or more consonants in a word. We start looking for a word that starts with two consonants. If there is such a word, all the constants remain in one syllable. If there isn’t one, the first consonant goes into the first syllable, and the rest - into the second.

For example, the word εχθρός. We find a Greek word starting with χθ, which is χθες, and it means the word will be written like ε-χθρός.

Another example is άνθρωπος. We try to find a word which begins with «νθ», but there is none, so the first consonant remains in the first syllable, and the rest move to the next one θρω, and it results in ν-θρω-πος.

Consonant combinations (τα δίψηφα σύμφωνα): μπ, ντ, γκ, τσ, τζ are NEVER separated.

Examples can be: α-γκα-λιά, κα-μπά-να, κα-τσί-κα, έ-τσι, τζί-τζι-κας.

Digraphs οι, ει, υι, αι, ου and diphthongs αυ, ευ are NEVER separated. For instance, μαύ-ρο, και-ρός, κού-κλα, φευ-γω.

Catachresis diphthongs (it’s a combination of the [и] sound with any other vowel) are NEVER divided: δου-λειά, κά-ποιος, γιου-κα-λί-λι, γιου-βέ-τσι.

Vowel combinations with a short [и,й] όι, όη, άι, αη are also NOT divided: κο-ρόι-δο, γαϊ-δού-ρι, αη-δό-νι.

Looks like we have covered all the main rules of how to dipvided words at the end of a line and syllabify them.

To sum up, παιδιά, if you cannot remember all the rules or happen to have doubts, ‘just shift the whole word to the new line’. Such wise words from my teacher!

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We wish you all the best in learning Greek!