The History of the Greek alphabet starts with the adoption of Phoenician letterforms 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 in other words it represented only consonants. This arrangement is much less suitable for Greek than for Semitic languages and several of the Phoenician consonants, representing sounds or distinctions not present in Greek, were adapted to represent vowels; consequently the Greek alphabet can be considered to be the world's first true alphabet. Drawing of the 16 and 12 characters Wadi el-Hol inscriptions The Proto-Canaanite (also Proto-Sinaitic) alphabet is identified as the prototype of the Semitic alphabets that, mostly via the successful Phoenician alphabet became the ancestor of most scripts in use today. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1400 BC and is related to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1000 BC and is derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... The Aramaic alphabet is an abjad alphabet designed for writing the Aramaic language. ... BrāhmÄ« refers to the pre-modern members of the Brahmic family of scripts. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, and to an extent, Korea. ... Om Mani Padme Hum, the primary mantra of Tibetan Buddhism written in the Tibetan script, on a rock outside the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. ... This article or section uses Khmer characters which may be rendered as boxes or other nonsensical symbols. ... Javanese script is the script that Javanese is originally written in (not to be confused with Javascript, which is a programming language). ... This article is mainly about Hebrew letters. ... 11th century book in Syriac Serto. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Younger Futhark inscription on the Vaksala Runestone The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes, formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia and the British Isles, but before Christianization also on the European Continent. ...   The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed by Philostorgius to Wulfila, used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. ... Tablet inscribed with the Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavonic alphabet. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced , also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages; (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. ... Photograph of Botorrita 1 (both sides), 1st century BC. The Iberian scripts (or Iberian alphabet) are two scripts (or two styles of the same script) found on the Iberian peninsula, the Northeast and South Iberian script. ... The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. ...   Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian (Hieroglyphic) origin used in Kingdom of Meroë. Some scholars, e. ... Nearly all the segmental scripts (alphabets, but see below for more precise terminology) used around the globe were apparently derived from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1400 BC and is related to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... An abjad is a type of writing system where there is one symbol per consonantal phoneme, sometimes also called a consonantary. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ...

Chronology of adoption

Most specialists believe that the Phoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek during the 9th century BC, perhaps in Euboea. The earliest known fragmentary Greek inscriptions date from the early 8th century. The oldest substantial texts known to date are the Dipylon inscription and the text on the so-called Cup of Nestor, both dated to the late 8th century BC. (10th century BC - 9th century BC - 8th century BC - other centuries) (900s BC - 890s BC - 880s BC - 870s BC - 860s BC - 850s BC - 840s BC - 830s BC - 820s BC - 810s BC - 800s BC - other decades) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events Kingdom of Kush (900 BC... Euboea or Negropont (Modern Greek: Εύβοια Evia, Ancient Greek Εúβοια Eúboia; see also List of traditional Greek place names), is the largest island of the Greek archipelago. ... Epigraphy (Greek, επιγραφή - written upon) is the study of inscriptions engraved into stone or other permanent materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) Events and trends Ruins of the training grounds at Olympia, Greece. ... The Dipylon inscription is a short text written on an ancient Greek pottery vessel dated to c. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

Some scholars argue for earlier dates: Naveh (1973) for the 11th century, Stieglitz (1981) for the 14th century, Bernal (1990) for the 18th–13th century, but none of these is widely accepted.

Herodotus' account

Herodotus recounts the following legend about the introduction of Phoenician letters to Greece (V, 58): Bust of Herodotus at Naples Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: , Herodotos) was a historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ...

The Phoenicians who came with Cadmus—amongst whom were the Gephyraei—introduced into Greece, after their settlement in the country, a number of accomplishments, of which the most important was writing, an art till then, I think, unknown to the Greeks. At first they used the same characters as all the other Phoenicians, but as time went on, and they changed their language, they also changed the shape of their letters. At that period most of the Greeks in the neighbourhood were Ionians; they were taught these letters by the Phoenicians and adopted them, with a few alterations, for their own use, continuing to refer to them as the Phoenician characters—as was only right, as the Phoenicians had introduced them. The Ionians also call paper 'skins'—a survival from antiquity when paper was hard to get, and they did actually use goat and sheep skins to write on. Indeed, even today many foreign peoples use this material. In the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Theba in Boeotia I have myself seen cauldrons with inscriptions cut on them in Cadmean characters—most of them not very different from the Ionian.

Other ancient Greek writers credited the legendary Palamedes of Argos with the invention of the supplementary letters not found in the original Phoenician alphabet. [1] Cadmus Sowing the Dragons teeth, by Maxfield Parrish, 1908 Cadmus, or Kadmos (Greek: Κάδμος), in Greek mythology, was the son of the king of Phoenicia and brother of Europa. ... In Greek mythology, Palamedes was the son of Nauplius and Clymene. ...

Restructuring of the Phoenician abjad

Phoenician and Greek alphabets Phoenician Greek ʼāleph Α alpha bēth Β beta gīmel Γ gamma dāleth Δ delta hē Ε epsilon wāw digamma zayin Ζ zeta ḥēth Η eta ṭēth Θ Theta yōdh Ι iota kaph Κ kappa lāmedh Λ lambda mēm Μ mu nun Ν nu sāmekh Ξ xi ʼayin Ο omicron pē Π pi ṣādē san qōph qoppa rēš Ρ rho šin Σ sigma tāw Τ tau Υ upsilon Φ phi Χ chi Ψ psi Ω omega sampi

Note: phonetic transcriptions below in square brackets use the International Phonetic Alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1400 BC and is related to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... Phoenician Aleph. ... is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew , , and Arabic . Aleph originally expressed the glottal stop (IPA ), usually transliterated as , a symbol based on the Greek spiritus lenis , for example in the transliteration of the letter... Alpha (uppercase Α, lowercase α) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Beth. ...   Beth or Bet is the second letter of many Semetic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... Beta (upper case Î’, lower case β) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Gimel. ...   Gimmel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Aramaic, Syriac, Phoenician and Hebrew. ... Gamma (uppercase Γ, lowercase γ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Daleth. ...   Dalet or Daleth is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... For other uses, see Delta. ... Phoenician He. ... He is the fifth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... For the 2005 hurricane, see Hurricane Epsilon. ... Phoenician Waw. ...   Vav or waw is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in abjadi order; it is the twenty-seventh in modern Arabic order. ... Digamma (upper case , lower case ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as a Greek numeral. ... Phoenician Zayin. ... Zayin or Zain is the seventh letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... Zeta (upper case Ζ, lower case ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Heth. ...   Kheth or Het is the eighth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... For other uses, see Eta. ... Phoenician Teth. ... (also Teth, Tet) is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 16th in modern order). ... Theta (upper case Θ, lower case θ or ) is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Yodh. ... Yodh (also spelled Yud or Yod) is the tenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 28th in modern order). ... For programming language, see Iota and Jot. ... Phoenician Kaph. ... Kaph (also spelled Kap or Kaf) is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its value is IPA . ... For other uses, see Kappa. ... Phoenician Lamedh. ... Lamed or Lamedh is the twelfth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Lambda (uppercase Λ, lowercase λ) is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Mem. ... Mem is the thirteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... For other uses, see Mu. ... Phoenician Nun. ... Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... For other uses, see Nu. ... Phoenician Samekh. ... Samekh is the fifteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Xi (upper case Ξ, lower case ξ) is the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Ayin. ... Ayin is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... Omicron (upper case Ο, lower case ο, literally small o) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Pe. ... This is about the Hebrew letter: for the Cyrillic letter, see Pe (Cyrillic). ... For other uses, see Pi (disambiguation) Pi (upper case Π, lower case Ï€ or Ï–) is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Image File history File links Phoenician_sade. ... Tsade or Tsadi is the 18th letter in the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... San (uppercase , lowercase ) was a letter of the Greek alphabet, appearing between Pi and Qoppa in alphabetical order, corresponding in position although not in name to the Phoenician tsade. ... Phoenician Qoph. ...   Qoph is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... Qoppa Qoppa is an obsolete letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numeric value of 90. ... Phoenician Res. ... Resh is the twentieth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Rho (upper case Ρ, lower case ρ) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Sin. ... Shin or Sin is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic (in abjadi order, 12th in modern order). ... Sigma (upper case Σ, lower case σ, alternative ς) is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phoenician Taw. ... Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its original value is an voiceless alveolar plosive, IPA , The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Tau (Τ), Latin T, and the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Tau (upper case Τ, lower case Ï„) is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Phi (upper case Φ, lower case φ or ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Chi (upper case Χ, lower case χ) is the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Sampi (Upper case Ϡ, lower case ϡ) is an obsolete letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numeric value of 900. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ...

Phoenician, like the other Semitic scripts, has a range of letters commonly (if unscientifically) referred to as gutturals: ʼāleph, hē, ḥēth, and ʼayin. Of these, only ḥēth was retained in Greek as a consonant: eta, representing the [h] sound, and that in certain dialects only; ʼāleph, hē, and ʼayin became the vowels alpha [a], epsilon [e] and omicron [o] respectively. In articulatory phonetics, the term guttural consonant is sometimes used to describe any of several consonantal speech sounds whose primary place of articulation is near the back of the oral cavity, specifically some velar consonants, uvular consonants, pharyngeal consonants, and epiglottal consonants (q. ... is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew , , and Arabic . Aleph originally expressed the glottal stop (IPA ), usually transliterated as , a symbol based on the Greek spiritus lenis , for example in the transliteration of the letter... He is the fifth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ...   Kheth or Het is the eighth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... Ayin is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... ETA symbol or ETA (Basque for Basque Homeland and Freedom; IPA pronunciation: [) is a paramilitary Basque nationalist organization listed as a terrorist organization both by the European Union and the United States in their watchlists on the matter. ... Alpha (uppercase Α, lowercase α) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. ... For the 2005 hurricane, see Hurricane Epsilon. ... Omicron (upper case Ο, lower case ο, literally small o) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. ...

Of the two Phoenician approximants, wāw and yōdh, yōdh became the vowel iota [i], since the [j] sound, present in earlier varieties of Greek, had disappeared; wāw was retained as the letter digamma representing [w] in those dialects which still had this sound, and seems additionally to have given rise to the letter upsilon [u] which was added at the end of the alphabet. Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ...   Vav or waw is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in abjadi order; it is the twenty-seventh in modern Arabic order. ... Yodh (also spelled Yud or Yod) is the tenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 28th in modern order). ... For programming language, see Iota and Jot. ... Digamma (upper case , lower case ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as a Greek numeral. ... Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ...

In addition to tāw, Phoenician had an "emphatic" version, ṭēth. This distinction did not exist in Greek, which did however have a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated versions of the voiceless plosives. So alongside tau, derived from tāw and representing [t], Greek had theta, derived from ṭēth and representing the aspirated version, [tʰ]. Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its original value is an voiceless alveolar plosive, IPA , The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Tau (Τ), Latin T, and the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... (also Teth, Tet) is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 16th in modern order). ... Theta (upper case Θ, lower case θ or ) is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet. ...

The Phoenician consonants kaph and qōph represented sounds which were not distinctively different in Greek — at most, they may have been allophones determined by the following vowel. The letter qoppa was used in certain Greek dialects (notably the western dialects which ultimately gave rise, via Etruscan, to the Latin alphabet) but elsewhere dropped out of general use. Kaph (also spelled Kap or Kaf) is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its value is IPA . ...   Qoph is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... In Quebec, an allophone (French or English. ... Qoppa Qoppa is an obsolete letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numeric value of 90. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Phoenician had three letters, sāmekh, ṣādē, and šin, representing three or probably four voiceless sibilant sounds, where Greek only required one. The history here is complicated, but basically sāmekh dropped out in certain dialects, and was reused to represent [ks] in others, while usage for the [s] sound varied between ṣādē and šin. The letter now known as sigma took its name from sāmekh but its form from šin, while the letter San, which occurred in a few dialects only, took its name from šin but its place in the alphabet from ṣādē. A further letter, sampi, is found occasionally, and may represent an affricate such as [ts]. Samekh is the fifteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Tsade or Tsadi is the 18th letter in the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Shin or Sin is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic (in abjadi order, 12th in modern order). ... A sibilant is a type of fricative, made by speeding up air through a narrow channel and directing it over the sharp edge of the teeth. ... Sigma (upper case Σ, lower case σ, alternative ς) is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... San (uppercase , lowercase ) was a letter of the Greek alphabet, appearing between Pi and Qoppa in alphabetical order, corresponding in position although not in name to the Phoenician tsade. ... Sampi (Upper case Ϡ, lower case ϡ) is an obsolete letter of the Greek alphabet and has a numeric value of 900. ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ...

The remaining letters of the Phoenician alphabet were generally adopted into Greek with much the same sounds as in Phoenician. For the special case of zeta, see Zeta (letter). Zeta (upper case Ζ, lower case ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. ...

Note: some of the names of the Greek letters given above date from a much later period: see below.

Additional consonants

In some but not all Greek dialects, additional letters were created, to represent aspirated versions of Κ and Π (an aspirated version of Τ already existed as described above) and combinations of Κ and Π with Σ. There was some variation between dialects as to the symbols used:

• [kʰ] could be Κ, ΚΗ, Ψ, or Χ
• [pʰ] could be Π, ΠΗ, or Φ
• [ks] could be ΚΣ, ΧΣ, Χ, or Ξ
• [ps] could be ΠΣ, ΦΣ, or Ψ

Standardization — the Ionic alphabet

From 450 BC onwards, the Ionic version of the alphabet was adopted in most Greek cities. This included a new letter omega at the end of the alphabet, and standardised the representation of various sounds which had varied from one dialect to another, as follows: Centuries: 6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC Decades: 500s BC 490s BC 480s BC 470s BC 460s BC - 450s BC - 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC 410s BC 400s BC Years: 455 BC 454 BC 453 BC 452 BC 451 BC - 450 BC - 449 BC 448 BC...

The absence of a letter for [h] was of no consequence for the Ionic dialects, but sometimes led to ambiguities in Attic which had retained the sound. A symbol based on the left-hand half ( ├ ) of the letter Η was therefore sometimes used to indicate the presence of [h] where necessary.

During the classical period, ΕΙ came to be pronounced [i:] and ΟΥ came to be pronounced [u:], Υ having meanwhile moved to [y].

By about 200 BC a system of diacritical marks was invented, representing the tone accents in use in Ancient Greek. This also helped to indicate the length of the vowels Α, Ι, and Υ in certain cases (for instance a circumflex can only occur on a long vowel) but Greek orthography has never had a comprehensive way of indicating vowel length, and this distinction has in any case been lost in Modern Greek. Centuries: 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - 1st century BC Decades: 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC - 200s BC - 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC Years: 205 BC 204 BC 203 BC 202 BC 201 BC - 200 BC - 199 BC 198 BC...

Later developments

By the 9th century AD a number of further developments had taken place: (8th century - 9th century - 10th century _ other centuries) Events Beowulf might have been written down in this century, though it could also have been in the 8th century Viking attacks on Europe begin Oseberg ship burial The Magyars arrive in what is now Hungary, forcing the Serbs and Bulgars...

• use of upper and lower case letters
• systematic use of accent marks and breathings (see polytonic orthography)
• some punctuation.

By the 13th century the iota subscript was employed in "long diphthongs". Polytonic orthography for Greek uses a variety of diacritics (πολύ = many + τόνος = accent) to represent aspects of Ancient Greek pronunciation. ... (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ... Iota subscript (Greek ) in Greek polytonic orthography is a way of writing the letter iota as a small vertical stroke beneath a vowel. ...

In 1982 the monotonic orthography was officially adopted, abandoning the rough and smooth breathings (since the [h] sound had long since disappeared) and reducing the three types of accent mark to one (since the tone accent had been replaced by a stress accent). 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Monotonic orthography is the simplified way for spelling modern Greek introduced in the 1980s. ...

The pronunciation of Greek has also changed considerably since ancient times, but these changes have not been apparent from the orthography, which has remained conservative — see Greek alphabet for a summary of the current situation. Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

The names of the letters

Some of the letters changed their names, when phonetic changes made the original names no longer distinctive, as follows:

The letter F was probably originally called wau, but in classical times was called digamma, reflecting its shape rather than its sound. Similarly the name sampi means "like pi" suggesting that its phonetic use had been forgotten.

Some alternative theories claim that the names of the letters are intended to form words when the alphabet is conjured.

Greek numerals

The letters of the alphabet were used in the system of Greek numerals. For this purpose the letters digamma and qoppa (but not san) were retained although they had gone out of general use, and the obscure letter sampi was added at the end of the alphabet. Digamma was often replaced in numerical use by stigma (Ϛ), originally a ligature of sigma and tau, or even the sequence sigma-tau (στ'). Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. ... Stigma is a ligature of the Greek letters sigma and tau, sometimes used nowadays to represent the Greek numeral 6. ...

Diffusion

The Old Italic and Anatolian alphabets are, like the Greek alphabet, attested from the 8th century. It is unclear whether they should be considered as siblings of the latter, adopted from the Phoenician simultaneously, or rather as early descendants of the nascent Greek alphabet proper. Note: This article contains special characters. ... Various alphabetic writing systems were in use in Iron Age Anatolia to record Anatolian dialects and the Phrygian language. ...

See also

• Dipylon inscription
• Nestor's Cup
• Western Greek alphabet

The Dipylon inscription is a short text written on an ancient Greek pottery vessel dated to c. ... The term Cup of Nestor or Nestors Cup can refer to: An object described in Homers Iliad, An 8th century BCE drinking vessel found at Pithikoussai, which bears a famous inscription calling itself Nestors cup. ... It has been suggested that Cumae alphabet be merged into this article or section. ...

Bibliography

• Martin Bernal, Cadmean Letters: The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West Before 1400 B.C., Eisenbrauns, 1990. ISBN 0-931464-47-1.
• Peter T Daniels and William Bright, The World's Writing Systems, Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-19-507993-0, especially Section 21 "Transmission of the Phoenician Script to the West" (Pierre Swiggers) and Section 22 "The Greek Alphabet" (Leslie Threatte).
• Lillian Hamilton Jeffrey, The local scripts of archaic Greece: a study of the origin of the Greek alphabet and its development from the eighth to the fifth centuries B.C., Oxford, 1961, ISBN 0-19-814061-4. The standard reference.
• P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., The antiquity of the Greek alphabet and the early Phoenician scripts, Harvard Semitic monographs, 1975. ISBN 0-89130-066-X.
• P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., "The Early Diffusion of the Greek Alphabet", in Michael S. Macrakis, ed., Greek letters: from tablets to pixels, proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Greek Font Society, Oak Knoll Press, 1996, ISBN 1-884718-27-2.
• P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., "Who Invented the Alphabet: A Different View" Archaeological Odyssey 1:01 (Winter 1998) online
• Joseph Naveh, "Some Semitic epigraphical considerations in the antiquity of the Greek alphabet", American journal of archaeology 77: 1-8 (1973). Argues for an earlier date of transmission.
• Joseph Naveh, "The origin of the Greek alphabet" in Derrick de Kerckhove, Charles J. Lumsden, eds., The alphabet and the brain: The lateralization of writing (p 84-91), 1988.
• Robert R. Stieglitz, "The Letters of Kadmos: Mythology, Archaeology, and Eteocretan", Pepragmena tou Diethnous Kretologikou Synedriou (Herakleio, 29 August – 3 September 1976), Athens, 1981.