Greeklish

Greeklish is commonly used on the Internet when Greek people communicate by e-mail, IRC (chat) or other means.

In the past it was difficult to make computers recognize Greek characters, because not all operating systems or applications had support for Greek. Today, because modern software supports a lot of languages including Greek, it is much easier for Greeks to communicate in their mother tongue[?] over the Internet. However a lot of people still use Greeklish, maybe because it is faster to type and they do not have to worry about orthography and grammar.

There are many ways to write Greeklish. As there is no commonly accepted method of transcripting Greek characters into Latin ones between the Greek Internet users, everyone uses their own way.

Examples

• Greek: Καλημέρα, πως είσαστε; (goodmorning, how are you?)
• Greeklish 1: kalimera, pos isaste?
• Greeklish 2: kalhmera, pws eisaste?
• Greeklish 3: kalhm3ra, pws eisast3?

• Greek: Θήτα (theta)
• Greeklish 1: thita
• Greeklish 2: 8ita
• Greeklish 3: uita

As you can see, it is very common to use the number 8 for the letter theta, or the letter u (propably because u and theta are on the same key on the Greek computer keyboards) or the combination th. For the letter E (epsilon) usually Greeks use the English letter e or the number 3 (which looks like an epsilon inverted).