What Does Sigma Mean?

• What does Sigma mean?

Sigma is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet. There are three symbols for Sigma; the first symbol looks similar to a capital 'E', the second is similar to an 'o' and the third is similar to an 's'. It is thought that 'Sigma' may come from the Greek and it meant 'hissing'. Sigma also has a numerical value of 200 and the corresponding letter in the Phoenician alphabet is W (Sin).

• Phoenician Alphabet

Sigma originates from the Phoenician alphabet which could be as old as 1050 BC and is thought to be one of the first alphabets, it was developed and used by the civilization of Phoenicia in the Mediterranean region. This writing system slowly spread across the world through Mediterranean trading merchants and was adopted by other cultures. Over thousands of years our written languages have evolved into what they are today. When the Phoenician language was first discovered in the 19th century it was believed to be a version of Egyptian hieroglyphs and it was not until later that the true origin was discovered.

• Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters and has been in use since the 8th century BC. It was the first known alphabet system that represents each vowel and consonant with a different symbol. The letters from the Greek alphabet are still used today in maths, science, physics and star names. They are also used in fraternities and sororities at colleges. Although many people believe it is in some ways related to Linear B or the Cypriot syllabary which are both early forms of writing in Greek, the Greek alphabet we see today is not based upon these.

Sigma is the 18th letter in the Greek alphabets. Its upper case is denoted by Σ while in the lower case it is written as σ. When sigma is used as an alphabet at the end of a word, it is written in this form ς. It is also used in the Greek numeral system and it has a value of 200.

Sigma has applications in mathematics and statics. The letter Σ is used to denote the sum of values while in the form of σ, it represents standard deviation in statistics.