The Greek Alphabet

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When was the Greek alphabet likely created?

Around 800 B.C. after being copied from the Phoenician alphabet

Why was the creation of an alphabet good?

It was a superior way to show the sounds of language to syllabary used earlier

How does an alphabet work?

It uses individual symbols to show phonemes, the smallest sounds of human speech rather than whole syllables

What other Phoenician technologies did the Greeks copy?

Mortise-and-tenon shipbuilding and long-range navigation techniques

What are the two (arguably) most important legacies from ancient Greece?

The concept of democracy and the Greek-modified alphabet

Did alphabets exists before 800 B.C.?

Yes, but they were confined to peoples within the West Semitic language family of the Near East

What was the earliest alphabet created?

An alphabet of 27 consonant letter invented in 2000 B.C. by West Semitic speakers in Egypt as an offshoot of Egyptian hieroglyphics

How did the alphabet spread from its first iteration?

It spread northward along caravan routes during 2000-900 B.C. and when it reached Phoenicia it had been refined to 22 letters

How did the Greeks copy the Phoenician alphabet?

They kept the sequence, shapes, and sounds of Phoenician letters but invented five vowel letters → Phoenicians used vowel-sounds while talking but omitted them in writing

Why was the Greek created of vowel letters so important?

Indo-European languages need to show vowel letters in their writing and so the creation of vowel letters opened alphabets to other languages

From where does our knowledge of early Greek alphabet come?

Inscriptions scratched into ceramic or stone in the 700s B.C. with the earliest coming from 770 B.C.

How was the earliest Greek alphabet structured?

It had 26 or 27 vowel letters which eventually settled down to 24 with seven vowels with dedicated letters for long Es and Os

What was the trade point where the Greeks likely acquired the Phoenician alphabet?

Al Mina

Why do we suspect Al Mina as the point of contact for Greek alphabet inspiration?

• Greeks and Phoenicians were living side by side there in 800 B.C.

• Greeks at Al Mina belonged to Euboea

• Most early Greek inscriptions display lettering and sound systems used by the Euboean Greeks, meaning they got the alphabet first

How did having an alphabet change the Greeks?

It meant the gradual empowering of the middle class through literacy and would be one enabling factor in the creation of democracy at Athens in the 500s B.C.

After the Greeks got the alphabet, who was next to copy their alphabet?

The Etruscans of Italy in around 700 B.C.

How does the Greek alphabet relate to our alphabet now?

The Etruscan alphabet was adapted by the Romans, which would then be adapted to write Old English, which would then become our English → many of our letters have shapes and sounds like ancient Greek

Does an alphabet have to be tied to a language?

No, an alphabet can almost always be fitted to a new language (ex. Vietnamese switching from Chinese-derived script to Roman letters)

What are syllabary systems?

When symbols are used to show the syllables, such as in Babylonian cuneiform or Linear B

What is a phoneme?

The smallest unit of human speech, usually smaller than a syllable

What do we call the phoneme-symbols of the alphabet?

Letters

Why is syllabary more complicated than phoneme-symbols?

Typically a language contains hundreds of syllable-sounds, so a syllabary writing system needs hundreds of symbols

How many phonemes does English have?

44 (higher number than most)

What is a major strength of alphabetic writing?

An alphabet is easy to learn and use

How has the alphabet changed society?

It has been a vehicle of mass literacy, the middle and lower class could learn to read and write