The history of the Greek alphabet starts with the adoption of Phoenician letter forms and continues to the present day. This article concentrates on the early period, before the codification of the now-standard Greek alphabet.
The Phoenician alphabet was strictly speaking an abjad that was consistently explicit only about consonants, though even by the 9th century BC it had developed matres lectionis to indicate some, mostly final, vowels. This arrangement is much less suitable for Greek than for Semitic languages, and these matres lectionis, as well as several Phoenician letters which represented consonants not present in Greek, were adapted to represent vowels consistently, if not unambiguously.
The Greek alphabet was developed by a Greek with first-hand experience of contemporary Phoenician script and, almost as quickly as it was established in the Greek mainland was rapidly re-exported, eastwards to Phrygia, where a similar script was devised, and westwards with Euboean or West Greek traders, where the Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet to their own language.
Read more about History Of The Greek Alphabet: Chronology of Adoption, Restructuring of The Phoenician Abjad, Epichoric Alphabets, Additional Letters, Standardization – The Ionic Alphabet, Later Developments, The Names of The Letters, Greek Numerals, Diffusion
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history, greek and/or alphabet:
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“Roger Thornhill: You’re police, aren’t you. Or is it FBI?
Professor: FBI, CIA, O–I—we’re all in the same alphabet soup.”
—Ernest Lehman (b.1920)