History of The Greek Alphabet - Epichoric Alphabets

Epichoric Alphabets

In the 8th to 6th centuries, local or epichoric variants of the alphabet developed. They are classified into three main groups, following Adolf Kirchhoff (1887): green (Cretan), red (Euboean or Western) and blue (Ionic, Attic and Corinthian). The main distinction is in the supplemental signs added to the Phoenician core inventory.

All abecedaries add Υ to the Phoenician inventory but the early Fayum alphabet, which does not fit into the tripartite scheme. The green alphabets have only this; the red add Φ for, Χ for, and Ψ for ; and the blue add Φ for, and Χ for, with a dark blue subgroup (Corinth and Rhodes) also having Ψ for .