Archaic Greek alphabets
Encyclopedia
Many local variants of the Greek alphabet
were employed in ancient Greece
during the archaic
and early classical periods, until they were replaced by the classical 24-letter alphabet that is the standard today, around 400 BC. All forms of the Greek alphabet were originally based on the shared inventory of the 22 symbols of the Phoenician alphabet
, with the exception of the letter Samekh
, whose Greek counterpart Xi (Ξ) was used only in a sub-group of Greek alphabets, and with the common addition of Upsilon
(Υ) for the vowel /u, ū/. The local, so-called epichoric, alphabets differed in many ways: in the use of the consonant symbols Χ
, Φ
and Ψ
; in the use of the innovative long vowel letters (Ω and Η), in the absence or presence of Η in its original consonant function (/h/); in the use or non-use of certain archaic letters (Ϝ = /w/, Ϙ = /k/, Ϻ = /s/); and in many details of the individual shapes of each letter. The system now familiar as the standard 24-letter Greek alphabet was originally the regional variant of the Ionia
n cities in Asia Minor. It was officially adopted in Athens
in 403 BC and in most of the rest of the Greek world by the middle of the 4th century BC.
(1867). The "green" (or southern) type is the most archaic and closest to the Phoenician. The "red" (or western) type is the one that was later transmitted to the West and became the ancestor of the Latin alphabet
, and bears some crucial features characteristic of that later development. The "blue" (or eastern) type is the one from which the later standard Greek alphabet emerged.
The "green" (southern) type uses no additional letters beyond the Phoenician set, and typically also goes without Ξ (/ks/). Thus, the aspirated plosives /pʰ, kʰ/ are spelled either simply as Π and Κ respectively, without a distinction from unaspirated /p, k/, or as digraphs ΠΗ, ΚΗ. (However, for the analogous /tʰ/ there is already a dedicated letter, Θ, taken from Phoenician.) Likewise, the clusters /ps, ks/ are simply spelled ΠΣ, ΚΣ. This is the system found in Crete
and in some other islands in the southern Aegean
, notably Thera (Santorini), Melos and Anaphe.
The "red" (western) type also lacks Phoenician-derived Ξ for /ks/, but instead introduces a supplementary sign for that sound combination at the end of the alphabet, Χ. In addition, the red alphabet also introduced letters for the aspirates, Φ = "pʰ" and Ψ = "kʰ". Note that the use of "Χ" in the "red" set corresponds to the letter "X" in Latin, while it differs from the later standard Greek alphabet, where Χ stands for /kʰ/, and Ψ stands for /ps/. Only Φ for /pʰ/ is common to all non-green alphabets. The red type is found in most parts of central mainland Greece (Thessaly
, Boeotia
and most of the Peloponnese
), as well as the island of Euboea
, and in colonies associated with these places, including most colonies in Italy.
The "light blue" type still lacks Ξ (/ks/), and adds only letters for "pʰ" (Φ) and "kʰ" (Χ). Both of these correspond to the modern standard alphabet. The light blue system thus still has no separate letters for the clusters /ps, ks/. In this system, these are typically spelled ΦΣ and ΧΣ, respectively. This is the system found in Athens
(before 403 BC) and several Aegean islands.
The "dark blue" type, finally, is the one that has all the consonant symbols of the modern standard alphabet: in addition to Φ and Χ (shared with the light blue type), it also adds Ψ (at the end of the alphabet), and Ξ (in the alphabetic position of Phoenician Samekh). This system is found in the cities of the Ionian dodecapolis
, Knidos
in Asia Minor, and in Corinth
and Argos
on the northeastern Peloponnese.
(Η, , originally called hēta
) had two different functions, both derived from the name of its Phoenician model, hēth
: the majority of Greek dialects continued to use it for the consonant /h/, the same sound it denoted in Phoenician. However, the consonant /h/ was progressively lost from the spoken language (a process known as psilosis
), and in those dialects where this had already happened early on in the archaic period, Η was instead used to denote the long vowel /ɛː/, which occurred next in its name and was thus, in the /h/-less dialects, its natural acrophonic value. Early psilotic dialects include eastern Ionic
, the Aeolic
dialect of Lesbos, as well as the Doric
dialects of Crete
and Elis
The distribution of vocalic Η and E differs further between dialects, because the Greek language had a system of three distinct e-like phoneme
s: the long open-mid
/ɛː/ (classical spelling "η"), the long close-mid
/eː/ (later merged with the diphthong /ei/, classical spelling "ει"), and the short vowel /e/ (classical spelling "ε"). In the psilotic dialects of Asia Minor
and adjacent eastern Aegean islands, as well as Crete
, vocalic Η was used only for /ɛː/. In a number of Aegean islands, notably Rhodes
, Melos, Thera, and Paros
, it was used both for /h/ and for /ɛː/ without distinction. In Knidos
, a variant letter was invented to distinguish the two functions: Η was used for /h/, and for /ɛː/. In south Italian colonies, especially Taras
(Taranto), after c.400 BC, a similar distinction was made between Η for /ɛː/, and for /h/. This latter symbol was later turned into the diacritic sign of the spiritus asper
by the Alexandrine grammarians.
In Naxos
the system was slightly different: here, too, the same letter was used for /h/ and for a long vowel, but only in those cases where a long e-like sound had arisen through raising from older /aː/, not – as other users of vocalic eta did – also for the older /ɛː/ inherited from proto-Greek. This probably means that while in the dialects of other eta users the old and new long e had already merged in a single phoneme, the raising sound in Naxos was still distinct both from /aː/ and /ɛː/, hence probably an [æ]-like sound.
Yet another distinction was found in a group of cities in the north-east of the Peloponnese
, most notably Corinth
: here, it was not the open-mid /ɛː/ that was distinguished among the three e-sounds, but the closed-mid /eː/. The normal letter epsilon (Ε) was used exclusively for the latter, while a new special symbol (or, in Sicyon
) stood both for short /e/ and for /ɛː/. Yet another variation of the system is found in neighbouring Tiryns
: it uses the letter forms of the Corinthian system, versus E, but with the functional values of the classic eta versus epsilon system.
The new letter Omega
(Ω) to denote the long half-open [ɔː] sound was invented first in the East, in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, at some time before 600 BC. It was created by breaking up the closed circle of the Omicron (Ο), initially near the side. The letter was subsequently turned upright and the edges curled outwards . The Dorian city of Knidos
as well as a few Aegean islands, namely Paros
, Thasos
and Melos, chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for the short and a closed circle for the long /o/.
(Ϝ) for the sound /w/ was generally used only in those local scripts where the sound was still in use in the spoken dialect. During the archaic period, this includes most of mainland Greece (except Attica), as well as Euboea and Crete. In Athens and in Naxos it was apparently used only in the register of poetry. Elsewhere, i.e. in most of the Aegean islands and the East, the sound /w/ was already absent from the language.
The shape of the letter varies locally and over time. The most common early form is . Over time it developed in analogy with Epsilon (which changed from to "E"), becoming either the classical "F" or . Early Crete had an archaic form (which resembled its original model, the Y-shaped Phoenician waw
), or a variant with the stem bent sidewards .
instead of standard Sigma
to denote the sound /s/. It is unclear whether the distinction between the two letters originally corresponded to different phonetic realizations of the /s/ phoneme
in different dialects. Renowned epigrapher Lilian Jeffery (1915–1986) conjectured that San originally stood for a voiced [z] sound, and that those Doric
dialects that kept San instead of Sigma may have had such a pronunciation of /s/. Roger Woodard, professor of classics
at the University at Buffalo
, hypothesizes that San may originally have stood for [ts]. In any case, each dialect tended to use either San or Sigma to the exclusion of the other, and while the earliest abecedaria listed both letter shapes separately in their separate alphabetic positions, later specimens from the sixth century onwards tend to list only one of them. San was used in Argos
until the end of the 6th century, in Sikyon until c.500, in Corinth
until the first half of the 5th century, and in Crete for some time longer. Sikyon kept the sign as a local emblem on its coins.
of /k/ before back vowel
s [o, u], was originally common to most epichoric alphabets. It began to drop out of use from the middle of the 6th century BC. Some of the Doric regions, notably Corinth, Argos, Crete and Rhodes, kept it until the 5th century BC.
(modern "ϡ"). As an alphabetic character, it has been attested in the cities of Miletus
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
, Teos
(all situated in the region of Ionia
in Asia Minor
), in the island of Samos
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
). In Pontic Mesembria
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "". The sound denoted by this letter was a reflex of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw], and was probably an intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
, in one attested document, used an innovative letter similar to И , probably derived from a variant of san
, to denote what was probably a [ts]-like sound in environments reflecting etymological Proto-Greek */kʷ/.
, the letter digamma
(Ϝ) existed side by side with another distinctive form . It has been surmised that in this dialect the sound /w/ may have changed to labiodental /v/ in some environments. The F-shaped letter may have stood for the new /v/ sound, while the special И-shaped form signified those positions where the old /w/ sound was preserved.
n city of Thespiae
in the late 5th century BC. It occurred in the place of normal epsilon (Ε) whenever the sound stood before another vowel. Since its shape suggests a compromise form between an Ε and an Ι, it is thought that it denoted a raised
allophone, approaching /i/. It is attested in only one document, a set of grave stelae from 424 BC.
The form of Ζ generally had a straight stem in all local alphabets in the archaic period. Θ was mostly crossed ( or ). Ξ typically had a vertical stem , and Φ was most often . Υ and Ψ had frequent variants where the strokes branched out from the bottom of the character, resulting in and respectively. Η was originally a closed rectangular shape and developed several variants with different numbers of arrangements of connecting bars between the two outer stems.
The early shape of Ε was typically , with the arms diagonal and the stem descending below the lowest arm; it developed to the modern orthogonal form Ε during the archaic era. An analogous change was observed with Ϝ, which changed from to either or Ϝ. Early forms of Μ typically had the left stem descending lower than the right stem ; this remained a distinguishing feature in those varieties that also had san for /s/.
Π also typically had a shorter right stem . The top of Π could be curved rather than angular, approaching a Latin P . Ρ, in turn, could have a downward tail on the right, approaching a Latin R. In many red varieties, Δ too had variants where the left stroke was vertical, and the right edge of the letter sometimes rounded, approaching a Latin D .
The crooked shape of Σ could be written with different numbers of angles and strokes. Besides the classical form with four strokes , a three-stroke form resembling an angular Latin S was commonly found, and was particularly characteristic of some mainland Greek varieties including Attic and several "red" alphabets. The C-like "lunate" form of Σ that was later to become the standard form in late antiquity and Byzantine writing did not yet occur in the archaic alphabets.
The letter Ι had two principal variants: the classical straight vertical line, and a crooked form with three, four or more angular strokes . The crooked type was the older form, and remained common in those varieties where it could not be confused with sigma because sigma was absent in favour of san.
The letters Γ and Λ had multiple different forms that could often be confused with each other, as both are just an angle shape that could occur in various positions. C-like forms of Γ (either pointed or rounded) were common in many mainland varieties and in the West, where they inspired the Italic C; L-like shapes of Λ were particularly common in Euboea, Attica and Boeotia. Achaea
n colonies had a Γ in the form of single Ι-like vertical stroke.
The letter Α had different minor variants depending on the position of the middle bar, with some of them being characteristic of local varieties.
The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms. Besides the standard form (either rounded or pointed), there were forms as varied as (Gortyn
), and (Thera), (Argos
), (Melos), (Corinth
), (Megara
, Byzantium
), (Cyclades
).
Κ, Ν, Ο and Τ displayed little variation and few or no differences from their classical forms.
All letters could additionally occur in a mirrored form, when text was written from right to left, as was frequently done in the earliest period.
, until the late 5th century BC, used a variant of the "light blue" alphabet, with "ΧΣ" for /ks/ and "ΦΣ" for /ps/. "Ε" was used for all three sounds /e, eː, ɛː/ (correspondinɡ to classical "Ε, ΕΙ, Η" respectively), and "Ο" was used for all of /o, oː, ɔː/ (corresponding to classical "Ο, ΟΥ, Ω" respectively). "Η" was used for the consonant /h/. Among the characteristics of Athens writing were also some variant local letter forms, some of which were shared with the neighbouring (but otherwise "red") alphabet of Euboia: a form of "Λ" that resembled a Latin L and a form of "Σ" that resembled a Latin S .
By the late 5th century, use of elements of the Ionic alphabet side by side with this traditional local alphabet had become commonplace in private writing, and in 403 BC, a formal decree was passed that public writing would switch to the new Ionic orthography consistently, as part of the reform after the Thirty Tyrants
. This new system was subsequently also called the "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the archon
Eucleides
who oversaw the decision.
n alphabet was used in the cities of Eretria
and Chalkis and in related colonies in southern Italy
, notably in Cumae
and in Pithekoussai. It was through this variant that the Greek alphabet was transmitted to Italy, giving rise to the Old Italic alphabets, including Etruscan, and ultimately the Latin alphabet
. Some of the distinctive features of the Latin as compared to the standard Greek script are already present in the Euboean model.
The Euboean alphabet belonged to the "western" ("red") type. It had Χ = /kʰs/ and Ψ = /kʰ/. Like most early variants it also lacked Ω, and used Η for the consonant /h/ rather than for the vowel /ɛː/. It also kept the archaic letters digamma (Ϝ)
= /w/ and qoppa (Ϙ)
= /k/. san (Ϻ)
= /s/ was not normally used in writing, but apparently still transmitted as part of the alphabet, because it occurs in abecedaria found in Italy and was later adopted by Etruscan.
Like Athens, Euboea had a form of "Λ" that resembled a Latin L and a form of "Σ" that resembled a Latin S. Other elements foreshadowing the Latin forms include "Γ" shaped like a pointed "C" , "Δ" shaped like a pointed "D" , and "Ρ" shaped like "R" .
dialect of Corinth
was written in a distinctive alphabet that belonged to the "eastern" ("dark blue") type as far as its treatment of /pʰ, kʰ, ps, ks/ was concerned, but differed from the Ionic and classical alphabet in several other ways. Corinth used san (Ϻ)
instead of Σ for /s/, and retained qoppa (Ϙ)
for what was presumably a retracted allophone
of /k/ before back vowels. As described above, it also had an uncommon system for marking its [e]-sounds, with a Β-shaped letter used for /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ (classical "Ε" and "Η" respectively), and "Ε" used only for long close /eː/ (classical "ΕΙ"). For the consonant Β, in turn, Corinth used the special form . The letter Ι was written like a Σ .
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
were employed in ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
during the archaic
Archaic period in Greece
The Archaic period in Greece was a period of ancient Greek history that followed the Greek Dark Ages. This period saw the rise of the polis and the founding of colonies, as well as the first inklings of classical philosophy, theatre in the form of tragedies performed during Dionysia, and written...
and early classical periods, until they were replaced by the classical 24-letter alphabet that is the standard today, around 400 BC. All forms of the Greek alphabet were originally based on the shared inventory of the 22 symbols of the Phoenician alphabet
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...
, with the exception of the letter Samekh
Samekh
Samekh or Simketh is the fifteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, representing . The Arabic alphabet, however, uses a letter based on Phoenician šin to represent ; however, that glyph takes Samekh's place in the traditional Abjadi order of the Arabic...
, whose Greek counterpart Xi (Ξ) was used only in a sub-group of Greek alphabets, and with the common addition of Upsilon
Upsilon
Upsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw. The name of the letter is pronounced in Modern Greek, and in English , , or...
(Υ) for the vowel /u, ū/. The local, so-called epichoric, alphabets differed in many ways: in the use of the consonant symbols Χ
Chi
Chi may refer to:Chinese chi is an energy or form of life*Chi , a traditional Chinese unit of length , approximately 1/3 of a meter*Chi , a dragon in Chinese mythology...
, Φ
Phi
Phi may refer to:In language:*Phi, the Greek letter Φ,φ, the symbol for voiceless bilabial fricativeIn mathematics:*The Golden ratio*Euler's totient function*A statistical measure of association reported with the chi-squared test...
and Ψ
Psi
-Alphabetic letters:* Psi 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet* Psi , a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek-Mathematics:* Tangential angle of a curve*Chebyshev function*Dedekind psi function*Digamma function...
; in the use of the innovative long vowel letters (Ω and Η), in the absence or presence of Η in its original consonant function (/h/); in the use or non-use of certain archaic letters (Ϝ = /w/, Ϙ = /k/, Ϻ = /s/); and in many details of the individual shapes of each letter. The system now familiar as the standard 24-letter Greek alphabet was originally the regional variant of the Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
n cities in Asia Minor. It was officially adopted in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
in 403 BC and in most of the rest of the Greek world by the middle of the 4th century BC.
Aspirate and consonant cluster symbols
A basic division into four major types of epichoric alphabets is commonly made according to their different treatment of additional consonant letters for the aspirated consonants (pʰ, kʰ) and consonant clusters (ks, ps) of Greek. These four types are often conventionally labelled as "green", "red", "light blue" and "dark blue" types, based on a colour-coded map in a seminal 19th-century work on the topic, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets by Adolf KirchhoffAdolf Kirchhoff
Johann Wilhelm Adolf Kirchhoff , German classical scholar and epigraphist.-Biography:He was born in Berlin. In 1865 he was appointed professor of classical philology in the university of his native city...
(1867). The "green" (or southern) type is the most archaic and closest to the Phoenician. The "red" (or western) type is the one that was later transmitted to the West and became the ancestor of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, and bears some crucial features characteristic of that later development. The "blue" (or eastern) type is the one from which the later standard Greek alphabet emerged.
| Phoenician |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern | "green" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Western | "red" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eastern | "light blue" | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "dark blue" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classic Ionian | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sound | a | b | g | d | e | w | dz | h | ē | tʰ | i | k | l | m | n | ks | o | p | s | k | r | s | t | u | ks | pʰ | kʰ | ps | ō | |
| Modern | Α | Β | Γ | Δ | Ε | — | Ζ | — | Η | Θ | Ι | Κ | Λ | Μ | Ν | Ξ | Ο | Π | — | — | Ρ | Σ | Τ | Υ | — | Φ | Χ | Ψ | Ω | |
The "green" (southern) type uses no additional letters beyond the Phoenician set, and typically also goes without Ξ (/ks/). Thus, the aspirated plosives /pʰ, kʰ/ are spelled either simply as Π and Κ respectively, without a distinction from unaspirated /p, k/, or as digraphs ΠΗ, ΚΗ. (However, for the analogous /tʰ/ there is already a dedicated letter, Θ, taken from Phoenician.) Likewise, the clusters /ps, ks/ are simply spelled ΠΣ, ΚΣ. This is the system found in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and in some other islands in the southern Aegean
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, notably Thera (Santorini), Melos and Anaphe.
The "red" (western) type also lacks Phoenician-derived Ξ for /ks/, but instead introduces a supplementary sign for that sound combination at the end of the alphabet, Χ. In addition, the red alphabet also introduced letters for the aspirates, Φ = "pʰ" and Ψ = "kʰ". Note that the use of "Χ" in the "red" set corresponds to the letter "X" in Latin, while it differs from the later standard Greek alphabet, where Χ stands for /kʰ/, and Ψ stands for /ps/. Only Φ for /pʰ/ is common to all non-green alphabets. The red type is found in most parts of central mainland Greece (Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
and most of the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
), as well as the island of Euboea
Euboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
, and in colonies associated with these places, including most colonies in Italy.
The "light blue" type still lacks Ξ (/ks/), and adds only letters for "pʰ" (Φ) and "kʰ" (Χ). Both of these correspond to the modern standard alphabet. The light blue system thus still has no separate letters for the clusters /ps, ks/. In this system, these are typically spelled ΦΣ and ΧΣ, respectively. This is the system found in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
(before 403 BC) and several Aegean islands.
The "dark blue" type, finally, is the one that has all the consonant symbols of the modern standard alphabet: in addition to Φ and Χ (shared with the light blue type), it also adds Ψ (at the end of the alphabet), and Ξ (in the alphabetic position of Phoenician Samekh). This system is found in the cities of the Ionian dodecapolis
Ionian League
The Ionian League , also called the Panionic League, was a confederation formed at the end of the Meliac War in the mid-7th century BC comprising twelve Ionian cities .These were listed by Herodotus as*Miletus, Myus, and...
, Knidos
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located...
in Asia Minor, and in Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
and Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
on the northeastern Peloponnese.
Omega, Eta, and /h/
The letter etaETA
ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...
(Η, , originally called hēta
Heta (letter)
Heta is a conventional name for the historical Greek alphabet letter Eta and several of its variants when used in their original function of denoting the consonant /h/. The letter Η had been adopted by Greek from the Phoenician letter Heth originally with this consonantal sound value, and Hēta...
) had two different functions, both derived from the name of its Phoenician model, hēth
Heth
-People:* Children of Heth, a Canaanite nation in the Hebrew Bible, purportedly named after Heth, son of Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah* figures in the Book of Mormon:** Heth , an early Jaredite** Heth a later Jaredite...
: the majority of Greek dialects continued to use it for the consonant /h/, the same sound it denoted in Phoenician. However, the consonant /h/ was progressively lost from the spoken language (a process known as psilosis
Psilosis
Psilosis is the sound change in which Greek lost the consonant sound /h/ during antiquity. The term comes from the Greek psílōsis and is related to the name of the smooth breathing , the sign for the absence of initial in a word...
), and in those dialects where this had already happened early on in the archaic period, Η was instead used to denote the long vowel /ɛː/, which occurred next in its name and was thus, in the /h/-less dialects, its natural acrophonic value. Early psilotic dialects include eastern Ionic
Ionic Greek
Ionic Greek was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic dialect group of Ancient Greek .-History:Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C.By the end of the Greek Dark Ages in the 5th Century...
, the Aeolic
Aeolic Greek
Aeolic Greek is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia , Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor ....
dialect of Lesbos, as well as the Doric
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
dialects of Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
and Elis
Elis
Elis, or Eleia is an ancient district that corresponds with the modern Elis peripheral unit...
The distribution of vocalic Η and E differs further between dialects, because the Greek language had a system of three distinct e-like phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s: the long open-mid
Open-mid vowel
An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...
/ɛː/ (classical spelling "η"), the long close-mid
Close-mid vowel
A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...
/eː/ (later merged with the diphthong /ei/, classical spelling "ει"), and the short vowel /e/ (classical spelling "ε"). In the psilotic dialects of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
and adjacent eastern Aegean islands, as well as Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, vocalic Η was used only for /ɛː/. In a number of Aegean islands, notably Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, Melos, Thera, and Paros
Paros
Paros is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets...
, it was used both for /h/ and for /ɛː/ without distinction. In Knidos
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located...
, a variant letter was invented to distinguish the two functions: Η was used for /h/, and for /ɛː/. In south Italian colonies, especially Taras
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
(Taranto), after c.400 BC, a similar distinction was made between Η for /ɛː/, and for /h/. This latter symbol was later turned into the diacritic sign of the spiritus asper
Spiritus asper
In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing , is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even after the Hellenistic period, when the sound disappeared from the Greek language...
by the Alexandrine grammarians.
In Naxos
Naxos
-Places:*Naxos , an island in the Cyclades group**Naxos , a town and former municipality on the island of Naxos**Naxos , a Greek government division created from the former Cyclades Prefecture in 2011...
the system was slightly different: here, too, the same letter was used for /h/ and for a long vowel, but only in those cases where a long e-like sound had arisen through raising from older /aː/, not – as other users of vocalic eta did – also for the older /ɛː/ inherited from proto-Greek. This probably means that while in the dialects of other eta users the old and new long e had already merged in a single phoneme, the raising sound in Naxos was still distinct both from /aː/ and /ɛː/, hence probably an [æ]-like sound.
Yet another distinction was found in a group of cities in the north-east of the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
, most notably Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
: here, it was not the open-mid /ɛː/ that was distinguished among the three e-sounds, but the closed-mid /eː/. The normal letter epsilon (Ε) was used exclusively for the latter, while a new special symbol (or, in Sicyon
Sicyon
Sikyon was an ancient Greek city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day prefecture of Corinthia...
) stood both for short /e/ and for /ɛː/. Yet another variation of the system is found in neighbouring Tiryns
Tiryns
Tiryns is a Mycenaean archaeological site in the prefecture of Argolis in the Peloponnese, some kilometres north of Nauplion.-General information:...
: it uses the letter forms of the Corinthian system, versus E, but with the functional values of the classic eta versus epsilon system.
| Region | /h/ | /ɛː/ | /e/ | /eː/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ionia, Aeolis, Crete | – | Η | E | E | |
| Rhodes, Melos, Thera, Paros | Η | Η | Ε | Ε | |
| Knidos | Η | Ε | Ε | ||
| Naxos | Η | Η (æː) | Ε | Ε | Ε |
| Tiryns | Η | Ε | Ε | ||
| Corinth, Megara, Sicyon | Η | Ε | |||
| others | Η | Ε | Ε | Ε | |
The new letter Omega
Omega
Omega is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" , as opposed to omicron, which means "little O"...
(Ω) to denote the long half-open [ɔː] sound was invented first in the East, in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, at some time before 600 BC. It was created by breaking up the closed circle of the Omicron (Ο), initially near the side. The letter was subsequently turned upright and the edges curled outwards . The Dorian city of Knidos
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located...
as well as a few Aegean islands, namely Paros
Paros
Paros is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets...
, Thasos
Thasos
Thasos or Thassos is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, close to the coast of Thrace and the plain of the river Nestos but geographically part of Macedonia. It is the northernmost Greek island, and 12th largest by area...
and Melos, chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for the short and a closed circle for the long /o/.
Digamma (Wau)
The letter DigammaDigamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
(Ϝ) for the sound /w/ was generally used only in those local scripts where the sound was still in use in the spoken dialect. During the archaic period, this includes most of mainland Greece (except Attica), as well as Euboea and Crete. In Athens and in Naxos it was apparently used only in the register of poetry. Elsewhere, i.e. in most of the Aegean islands and the East, the sound /w/ was already absent from the language.
The shape of the letter varies locally and over time. The most common early form is . Over time it developed in analogy with Epsilon (which changed from to "E"), becoming either the classical "F" or . Early Crete had an archaic form (which resembled its original model, the Y-shaped Phoenician waw
), or a variant with the stem bent sidewards .San
Some local scripts used the M-shaped letter SanSan (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
instead of standard Sigma
Sigma
Sigma is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and carries the 'S' sound. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 200. When used at the end of a word, and the word is not all upper case, the final form is used, e.g...
to denote the sound /s/. It is unclear whether the distinction between the two letters originally corresponded to different phonetic realizations of the /s/ phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
in different dialects. Renowned epigrapher Lilian Jeffery (1915–1986) conjectured that San originally stood for a voiced [z] sound, and that those Doric
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
dialects that kept San instead of Sigma may have had such a pronunciation of /s/. Roger Woodard, professor of classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
at the University at Buffalo
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
, hypothesizes that San may originally have stood for [ts]. In any case, each dialect tended to use either San or Sigma to the exclusion of the other, and while the earliest abecedaria listed both letter shapes separately in their separate alphabetic positions, later specimens from the sixth century onwards tend to list only one of them. San was used in Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
until the end of the 6th century, in Sikyon until c.500, in Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
until the first half of the 5th century, and in Crete for some time longer. Sikyon kept the sign as a local emblem on its coins.
Koppa
The archaic letter Koppa (Ϙ), used for the back allophoneAllophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
of /k/ before back vowel
Back vowel
A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
s [o, u], was originally common to most epichoric alphabets. It began to drop out of use from the middle of the 6th century BC. Some of the Doric regions, notably Corinth, Argos, Crete and Rhodes, kept it until the 5th century BC.
Sampi
Some Ionian cities used a special letter , alphabetically ordered behind Ω, for a sibilant sound in positions where other dialects had either ΣΣ or ΤΤ (e.g. "" 'four', cf. normal spelling Ionic "" vs. Attic ). This symbol later dropped out of alphabetic use, but survived in the form of the numeral symbol sampiSampi
Sampi is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It was used in addition to the classical 24 letters of the alphabet to denote some type of a sibilant sound, probably or , in some eastern Ionic dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC...
(modern "ϡ"). As an alphabetic character, it has been attested in the cities of Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, Ephesos, Halikarnassos, Erythrae
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus , on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly opposite the island of Chios...
, Teos
Teos
Teos or Teo was a maritime city of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus, colonized by Orchomenian Minyans, Ionians, and Boeotians. The city is situated on a low hilly narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas of land . Teos ranked among twelve cities comprising the Ionian...
(all situated in the region of Ionia
Ionia
Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
), in the island of Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...
, in the Ionian colony of Massilia, and in Kyzikos (situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of Mysia
Mysia
Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north...
). In Pontic Mesembria
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...
, on the Black Sea coast of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, it was used on coins, which were marked with the abbreviation of the city's name, spelled "". The sound denoted by this letter was a reflex of the proto-Greek consonant clusters *[kj], *[kʰj], *[tj], *[tʰj], or *[tw], and was probably an intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier plosive clusters towards the later /s/ sound, possibly an affricate similar to /ts/.
Arcadian san
The Arcado-Cypriot dialect of MantineiaMantineia
Mantineia was a city in ancient Greece that was the site of two significant battles in Classical Greek history. It is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Tripoli, of which it is a municipal unit. Its seat...
, in one attested document, used an innovative letter similar to И , probably derived from a variant of san
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
, to denote what was probably a [ts]-like sound in environments reflecting etymological Proto-Greek */kʷ/.
Pamphylian digamma
In the highly divergent dialect of PamphyliaPamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
, the letter digamma
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
(Ϝ) existed side by side with another distinctive form . It has been surmised that in this dialect the sound /w/ may have changed to labiodental /v/ in some environments. The F-shaped letter may have stood for the new /v/ sound, while the special И-shaped form signified those positions where the old /w/ sound was preserved.
Boeotian raised E
A special letter for a variant realization of the short /e/ sound, , was briefly used in the BoeotiaBoeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
n city of Thespiae
Thespiae
Thespiae was an ancient Greek city in Boeotia. It stood on level ground commanded by the low range of hills which runs eastward from the foot of Mount Helicon to Thebes, near modern Thespies.-History:...
in the late 5th century BC. It occurred in the place of normal epsilon (Ε) whenever the sound stood before another vowel. Since its shape suggests a compromise form between an Ε and an Ι, it is thought that it denoted a raised
Close vowel
A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
allophone, approaching /i/. It is attested in only one document, a set of grave stelae from 424 BC.
Glyph shapes
Many of the letters familiar from the classical Greek alphabet displayed additional variation in shapes, with some of the variant forms being characteristic of specific local alphabets.The form of Ζ generally had a straight stem in all local alphabets in the archaic period. Θ was mostly crossed ( or ). Ξ typically had a vertical stem , and Φ was most often . Υ and Ψ had frequent variants where the strokes branched out from the bottom of the character, resulting in and respectively. Η was originally a closed rectangular shape and developed several variants with different numbers of arrangements of connecting bars between the two outer stems.
The early shape of Ε was typically , with the arms diagonal and the stem descending below the lowest arm; it developed to the modern orthogonal form Ε during the archaic era. An analogous change was observed with Ϝ, which changed from to either or Ϝ. Early forms of Μ typically had the left stem descending lower than the right stem ; this remained a distinguishing feature in those varieties that also had san for /s/.
Π also typically had a shorter right stem . The top of Π could be curved rather than angular, approaching a Latin P . Ρ, in turn, could have a downward tail on the right, approaching a Latin R. In many red varieties, Δ too had variants where the left stroke was vertical, and the right edge of the letter sometimes rounded, approaching a Latin D .
The crooked shape of Σ could be written with different numbers of angles and strokes. Besides the classical form with four strokes , a three-stroke form resembling an angular Latin S was commonly found, and was particularly characteristic of some mainland Greek varieties including Attic and several "red" alphabets. The C-like "lunate" form of Σ that was later to become the standard form in late antiquity and Byzantine writing did not yet occur in the archaic alphabets.
The letter Ι had two principal variants: the classical straight vertical line, and a crooked form with three, four or more angular strokes . The crooked type was the older form, and remained common in those varieties where it could not be confused with sigma because sigma was absent in favour of san.
The letters Γ and Λ had multiple different forms that could often be confused with each other, as both are just an angle shape that could occur in various positions. C-like forms of Γ (either pointed or rounded) were common in many mainland varieties and in the West, where they inspired the Italic C; L-like shapes of Λ were particularly common in Euboea, Attica and Boeotia. Achaea
Achaea
Achaea is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Greece. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. The capital is Patras. The population exceeds 300,000 since 2001.-Geography:...
n colonies had a Γ in the form of single Ι-like vertical stroke.
The letter Α had different minor variants depending on the position of the middle bar, with some of them being characteristic of local varieties.
The letter Β had the largest number of highly divergent local forms. Besides the standard form (either rounded or pointed), there were forms as varied as (Gortyn
Gortyn
Gortyn, Gortys or Gortyna is a municipality and an archaeological site on the Mediterranean island of Crete, 45 km away from the modern capital Heraklion. The seat of the municipality is the village Agioi Deka...
), and (Thera), (Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...
), (Melos), (Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
), (Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
, Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
), (Cyclades
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
).
Κ, Ν, Ο and Τ displayed little variation and few or no differences from their classical forms.
All letters could additionally occur in a mirrored form, when text was written from right to left, as was frequently done in the earliest period.
Old Attic
AthensAthens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, until the late 5th century BC, used a variant of the "light blue" alphabet, with "ΧΣ" for /ks/ and "ΦΣ" for /ps/. "Ε" was used for all three sounds /e, eː, ɛː/ (correspondinɡ to classical "Ε, ΕΙ, Η" respectively), and "Ο" was used for all of /o, oː, ɔː/ (corresponding to classical "Ο, ΟΥ, Ω" respectively). "Η" was used for the consonant /h/. Among the characteristics of Athens writing were also some variant local letter forms, some of which were shared with the neighbouring (but otherwise "red") alphabet of Euboia: a form of "Λ" that resembled a Latin L and a form of "Σ" that resembled a Latin S .
By the late 5th century, use of elements of the Ionic alphabet side by side with this traditional local alphabet had become commonplace in private writing, and in 403 BC, a formal decree was passed that public writing would switch to the new Ionic orthography consistently, as part of the reform after the Thirty Tyrants
Thirty Tyrants
The Thirty Tyrants were a pro-Spartan oligarchy installed in Athens after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Contemporary Athenians referred to them simply as "the oligarchy" or "the Thirty" ; the expression "Thirty Tyrants" is due to later historians...
. This new system was subsequently also called the "Eucleidian" alphabet, after the name of the archon
Archon
Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem ἀρχ-, meaning "to rule", derived from the same root as monarch, hierarchy, and anarchy.- Ancient Greece :In ancient Greece the...
Eucleides
Eucleides
Eucleides was archon of Athens at the end of the fifth century BC.During the year that he spent in office , the murderous oligarchy of the Thirty Tyrants was driven out of Athens and the Athenian democracy re-established...
who oversaw the decision.
Euboean
The EuboeaEuboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
n alphabet was used in the cities of Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...
and Chalkis and in related colonies in southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, notably in Cumae
Cumae
Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy , and the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl...
and in Pithekoussai. It was through this variant that the Greek alphabet was transmitted to Italy, giving rise to the Old Italic alphabets, including Etruscan, and ultimately the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. Some of the distinctive features of the Latin as compared to the standard Greek script are already present in the Euboean model.
The Euboean alphabet belonged to the "western" ("red") type. It had Χ = /kʰs/ and Ψ = /kʰ/. Like most early variants it also lacked Ω, and used Η for the consonant /h/ rather than for the vowel /ɛː/. It also kept the archaic letters digamma (Ϝ)
Digamma
Digamma is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet which originally stood for the sound /w/ and later remained in use only as a numeral symbol for the number "6"...
= /w/ and qoppa (Ϙ)
Qoppa
Koppa or Qoppa is a letter that was used in early forms of the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician qoph. It was originally used to denote the /k/ sound, but dropped out of use as an alphabetic character in favour of Kappa . It has remained in use as a numeral symbol in the system of Greek...
= /k/. san (Ϻ)
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
= /s/ was not normally used in writing, but apparently still transmitted as part of the alphabet, because it occurs in abecedaria found in Italy and was later adopted by Etruscan.
Like Athens, Euboea had a form of "Λ" that resembled a Latin L and a form of "Σ" that resembled a Latin S. Other elements foreshadowing the Latin forms include "Γ" shaped like a pointed "C" , "Δ" shaped like a pointed "D" , and "Ρ" shaped like "R" .
Corinthian
The DoricDoric Greek
Doric or Dorian was a dialect of ancient Greek. Its variants were spoken in the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, Rhodes, some islands in the southern Aegean Sea, some cities on the coasts of Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Sicily, Epirus and Macedon. Together with Northwest Greek, it forms the...
dialect of Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
was written in a distinctive alphabet that belonged to the "eastern" ("dark blue") type as far as its treatment of /pʰ, kʰ, ps, ks/ was concerned, but differed from the Ionic and classical alphabet in several other ways. Corinth used san (Ϻ)
San (letter)
San was an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. Its shape was similar to modern M, or to a modern Greek Sigma turned sideways, and it was used as an alternative to Sigma to denote the sound . Unlike Sigma, whose position in the alphabet is between Rho and Tau, San appeared between Pi and Qoppa...
instead of Σ for /s/, and retained qoppa (Ϙ)
Qoppa
Koppa or Qoppa is a letter that was used in early forms of the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician qoph. It was originally used to denote the /k/ sound, but dropped out of use as an alphabetic character in favour of Kappa . It has remained in use as a numeral symbol in the system of Greek...
for what was presumably a retracted allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
of /k/ before back vowels. As described above, it also had an uncommon system for marking its [e]-sounds, with a Β-shaped letter used for /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ (classical "Ε" and "Η" respectively), and "Ε" used only for long close /eː/ (classical "ΕΙ"). For the consonant Β, in turn, Corinth used the special form . The letter Ι was written like a Σ .
]....ΚΕΑΣ:ΑΝΓΑΡΙΟΣ[ ]...ΑΥϜΙΟΣ:ΣΟΚΛΕΣ:[ ].ΤΙΔΑΣ:ΑΜΥΝΤΑΣ[ ]ΤΟΙ ΜΑΛΕϘΟ:ΚΑΙ.[ |
|
| Pottery shard with inscribed names in archaic Corinthian script, c.700 BC. At right: modern transcription. |
Summary table
The following summary of the principal characteristic forms of representative local Greek scripts is based on the chapters on each dialect in Jeffery (1961).| Region | α | β | γ | δ | ε | ϝ | ζ | η | h Heta (letter) Heta is a conventional name for the historical Greek alphabet letter Eta and several of its variants when used in their original function of denoting the consonant /h/. The letter Η had been adopted by Greek from the Phoenician letter Heth originally with this consonantal sound value, and Hēta... |
θ | ι | κ | λ | μ | ν | ξ | ο | π | ϻ | ϙ | ρ | σ | τ | υ | φ | χ | ψ | ω |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laconia Laconia Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti... |
– | – | (φσ) | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Arcadia Arcadia Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan... |
– | – | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Achaea Achaea Achaea is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Greece. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. The capital is Patras. The population exceeds 300,000 since 2001.-Geography:... |
– | – | ? | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ithaca Ithaca Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and... |
– | (ψϻ) | – | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rhodes Rhodes Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within... |
– | (χσ) |
– | (?) | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thessaly Thessaly Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey.... |
– | – | (φσ) | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Euboea Euboea Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to... |
– | – | (φσ) | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Boiotia | – | (χσ) | – | (φσ) | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Attica Attica Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea... |
– | (χσ) | – | (φσ) | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aigina | – | – | (χσ) | – | (φσ) | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Naxos Naxos -Places:*Naxos , an island in the Cyclades group**Naxos , a town and former municipality on the island of Naxos**Naxos , a Greek government division created from the former Cyclades Prefecture in 2011... |
(hσ) | – | (πσ) | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Paros Paros Paros is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets... |
– | (χσ) | – | (φσ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Delos Delos The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece... |
– | – | (?) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ionia Ionia Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements... |
– | – | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Knidos Knidos Knidos or Cnidus is an ancient settlement located in Turkey. It was an ancient Greek city of Caria, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus, now known as Gulf of Gökova. By the fourth century BC, Knidos was located... |
(?) | – | – | – | (?) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Megara Megara Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King... |
– | – | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Corinth Corinth Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit... |
– | – | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sicyon Sicyon Sikyon was an ancient Greek city situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present-day prefecture of Corinthia... |
– | – | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Argos Argos Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour... |
– | – | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tiryns Tiryns Tiryns is a Mycenaean archaeological site in the prefecture of Argolis in the Peloponnese, some kilometres north of Nauplion.-General information:... |
– | ? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Melos | |
– | (κϻ) | |
– | (πh) | (κh) | (πϻ) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Crete Crete Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits... |
|
|
|
– | |
|
(κϻ) | |
– | (πh) | (κh) | (πϻ) | – | |||||||||||||||
| Thera | |
– | (κϻ) | – | (πh) | (κh) | (πϻ) | – | ||||||||||||||||||||
Further reading
- Searchable Greek Inscriptions, epigraphical database, Packard Humanities Institute