Many local variants of the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
were employed in
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
during the
archaic and
early classical periods, until around 400 BC, when they were replaced by the classical 24-letter alphabet that is the standard today. All forms of the Greek alphabet were originally based on the shared inventory of the 22 symbols of the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
, with the exception of the letter
Samekh, whose Greek counterpart
Xi () was used only in a sub-group of Greek alphabets, and with the common addition of
Upsilon
Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; el, ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, grc, Υʹ, label=none has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw .
Etym ...
() for the vowel . The local, so-called ''epichoric'', alphabets differed in many ways: in the use of the consonant symbols , and ; in the use of the innovative long vowel letters ( and ), in the absence or presence of Η in its original consonant function (); in the use or non-use of certain archaic letters ( = , = , = ); 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 () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian ...
n cities in
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. It was officially adopted in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
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 () and consonant clusters () 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, ' by
Adolf Kirchhoff
Johann Wilhelm Adolf Kirchhoff (6 January 1826 – 26 February 1908) was a German classical scholar and epigraphist.
Biography
The son of historical painter Johann Jakob Kirchhoff, he was born in Berlin, and educated there. He then taught in va ...
(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
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
, 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.
*Upsilon is also derived from
waw
Waw or WAW may refer to:
* Waw (letter), a letter in many Semitic abjads
* Waw, the velomobile
* Another spelling for the town Wau, South Sudan
* Waw Township, Burma
*Warsaw Chopin Airport, an international airport serving Warsaw, Poland (IATA ai ...
(
![Phoenician waw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Phoenician_waw.svg)
).
The "green" (southern) type uses no additional letters beyond the Phoenician set, and typically also goes without (). Thus, the aspirated plosives , are spelled either simply as and respectively, without a distinction from unaspirated , , or as digraphs , . (However, for the analogous there is already a dedicated letter, , taken from Phoenician.) Likewise, the clusters , are simply spelled , . This is the system found in
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
and in some other islands in the southern
Aegean, notably
Thera
Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek language, Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English language, English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast ...
(Santorini),
Melos and
Anaphe.
The "red" (western) type also lacks Phoenician-derived for , but instead introduces a supplementary sign for that sound combination at the end of the alphabet, . In addition, the red alphabet also introduced letters for the aspirates, = and = . Note that the use of in the "red" set corresponds to the letter "X" in Latin, while it differs from the later standard Greek alphabet, where stands for , and stands for . Only for is common to all non-green alphabets. The red type is found in most parts of central mainland Greece (
Thessaly
Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...
,
Boeotia
Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( el, Βοιωτία; modern: ; ancient: ), formerly known as Cadmeis, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its lar ...
and most of the
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmu ...
), as well as the island of
Euboea
Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest poin ...
, and in colonies associated with these places, including most colonies in Italy.
The "light blue" type still lacks (), and adds only letters for () and (). Both of these correspond to the modern standard alphabet. The light blue system thus still has no separate letters for the clusters , . In this system, these are typically spelled and , respectively. This is the system found in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
(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 and (shared with the light blue type), it also adds (at the end of the alphabet), and (in the alphabetic position of Phoenician Samekh). This system is found in the cities of the
Ionian dodecapolis
The Ionian League ( grc, Ἴωνες, ''Íōnes''; , ''koinón Iōnōn''; or , ''koinē sýnodos Iōnōn''; Latin: ''commune consilium''), also called the Panionic League, was a confederation formed at the end of the Meliac War in the mid-7th ce ...
,
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus (; grc-gre, Κνίδος, , , Knídos) was a Greek city in ancient Caria and part of the Dorian Hexapolis, in south-western Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side ...
in Asia Minor, and in
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
and
Argos
Argos most often refers to:
* Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece
** Ancient Argos, the ancient city
* Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Argos or ARGOS may also refer to:
Businesses
...
on the northeastern Peloponnese.
Eta and /h/
The letter
eta
Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
(, , 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 , similar to its Phoenician value (). However, the consonant was progressively lost from the spoken language (a process known as
psilosis
Psilosis () is the sound change in which Greek lost the consonant sound /h/ during antiquity. The term comes from the Greek ''psílōsis'' ("smoothing, thinning out") and is related to the name of the smooth breathing (ψιλή ''psilḗ''), ...
), and in those dialects where this had already happened early on in the archaic period, was instead used to denote the long vowel , which occurred next in its name and was thus, in the -less dialects, its natural
acrophonic value. Early psilotic dialects include eastern
Ionic Greek, the
Aeolic Greek of
Lesbos
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Asia Minor by the nar ...
, as well as the
Doric Greek
Doric or Dorian ( grc, Δωρισμός, Dōrismós), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, that included ...
of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
and
Elis
Elis or Ilia ( el, Ηλεία, ''Ileia'') is a historic region in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. It is administered as a regional unit of the modern region of Western Greece. Its capital is Pyrgos. Until 2011 it was ...
.
The distribution of vocalic and differs further between dialects, because the Greek language had a system of three distinct ''e''-like
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s: the long
open-mid (classical spelling ), the long
close-mid (later merged with the diphthong , classical spelling ), and the short vowel (classical spelling ). In the psilotic dialects of
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
and adjacent eastern Aegean islands, as well as
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
, vocalic was used only for . In a number of Aegean islands, notably
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
,
Milos
Milos or Melos (; el, label=Modern Greek, Μήλος, Mílos, ; grc, Μῆλος, Mêlos) is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. Milos is the southwesternmost island in the Cyclades group.
The ''Venus d ...
,
Santorini
Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from the Greek mainland. It is the ...
and
Paros
Paros (; el, Πάρος; Venetian: ''Paro'') is a Greek island 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 ...
, it was used both for and for without distinction. In
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus (; grc-gre, Κνίδος, , , Knídos) was a Greek city in ancient Caria and part of the Dorian Hexapolis, in south-western Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side ...
, a variant letter was invented to distinguish the two functions: was used for , and for . In south Italian colonies, especially
Taranto
Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label= Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important com ...
, after c. 400 BC, a similar distinction was made between for , and for . This latter symbol was later turned into the diacritic sign for
rough breathing
In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( grc, δασὺ πνεῦμα, dasỳ pneûma or ''daseîa''; la, spīritus asper) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, ...
by the Alexandrine grammarians.
In
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...
the system was slightly different: here, too, the same letter was used for and for a long vowel, but only in those cases where a long e-like sound had arisen through
raising
Raising may refer to:
*Raising (linguistics), a syntactic construction
*Raising (phonetics), a sound change
*Raising (metalworking), a metalworking technique
*Barn raising, a community event to erect the wooden framework for a building
*Fundraising ...
from older , not – as other users of vocalic eta did – also for the older 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 and , hence probably an -like sound.
Yet another distinction was found in a group of cities in the north-east of the
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmu ...
, most notably
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
: here, it was not the open-mid that was distinguished among the three ''e''-sounds, but the closed-mid . The normal letter epsilon () was used exclusively for the latter, while a new special symbol (or, in
Sicyon, ) stood both for short and for . Yet another variation of the system is found in neighbouring
Tiryns
Tiryns or (Ancient Greek: Τίρυνς; Modern Greek: Τίρυνθα) is a Mycenaean archaeological site in Argolis in the Peloponnese, and the location from which the mythical hero Heracles performed his Twelve Labours. It lies south of M ...
: it uses the letter forms of the Corinthian system, versus E, but with the functional values of the classic eta versus epsilon system.
Archaic letters
Digamma (Wau)
The letter
Digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
() 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
![Phoenician waw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Phoenician_waw.svg)
), or a variant with the stem bent sideways ().
San
Some local scripts used the M-shaped letter
San 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 phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
in different dialects. Epigrapher
Lilian Hamilton Jeffery (1915–1986) conjectured that San originally stood for a voiced
sound, and that those
Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
dialects that kept San instead of Sigma may have had such a pronunciation of /s/. Roger Woodard, professor of
classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
at the
University at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...
, hypothesizes that San may originally have stood for
s 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 most often refers to:
* Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece
** Ancient Argos, the ancient city
* Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Argos or ARGOS may also refer to:
Businesses
...
until the end of the 6th century, in
Sicyon until c. 500, in
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
until the first half of the 5th century, and in Crete for some time longer. Sicyon kept the sign as a local emblem on its coins.
Koppa
The archaic letter
Koppa or Qoppa (), used for the back
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
of /k/ before
back vowel
A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...
s
, 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.
Innovative letters
A few letters have arisen from innovative letter distinctions, most of them for local alphabets.
Omega
The new letter
Omega
Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The wo ...
() to denote the long half-open 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 (), initially near the side. The letter was subsequently turned upright and the edges curled outwards (, , , ).
The Dorian city of
Knidos
Knidos or Cnidus (; grc-gre, Κνίδος, , , Knídos) was a Greek city in ancient Caria and part of the Dorian Hexapolis, in south-western Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. It was situated on the Datça peninsula, which forms the southern side ...
as well as a few Aegean islands, namely
Paros
Paros (; el, Πάρος; Venetian: ''Paro'') is a Greek island 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 ...
,
Thasos
Thasos or Thassos ( el, Θάσος, ''Thásos'') is a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea. It is the northernmost major Greek island, and 12th largest by area.
The island has an area of and a population of about 13,000. It forms a separate re ...
and
Melos, chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for the short and a closed circle for the long .
Sampi
Some Ionian cities used a special letter , alphabetically ordered behind , for a sibilant sound in positions where other dialects had either or (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
sampi
Sampi (modern: ϡ; ancient shapes: , ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It was used as an addition to the classical 24-letter alphabet in some eastern Ionic dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, to denote some t ...
(modern ). As an alphabetic character, it has been attested in the cities of
Miletus
Miletus (; gr, Μῑ́λητος, Mī́lētos; Hittite transcription ''Millawanda'' or ''Milawata'' (exonyms); la, Mīlētus; tr, Milet) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in a ...
,
Ephesos
Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἔφεσος, Éphesos; tr, Efes; may ultimately derive from hit, 𒀀𒉺𒊭, Apaša) was a city in ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in ...
,
Halikarnassos,
Erythrae
Erythrae or Erythrai ( el, Ἐρυθραί) later Litri, was one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, situated 22 km north-east of the port of Cyssus (modern name: Çeşme), on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae ...
,
Teos
Teos ( grc, Τέως) or Teo was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, on a peninsula between Chytrium and Myonnesus. It was founded by Minyans from Orchomenus, Ionians and Boeotians, but the date of its foundation is unknown. Teos was ...
(all situated in the region of
Ionia
Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian ...
in
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
), in the island of
Samos
Samos (, also ; el, Σάμος ) is a Greece, Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the -wide Mycale Strait. It is also a se ...
, in the Ionian colony of
Massilia
Massalia (Greek: Μασσαλία; Latin: Massilia; modern Marseille) was an ancient Greek colony founded ca. 600 BC on the Mediterranean coast of present-day France, east of the river Rhône, by Ionian Greek settlers from Phocaea, in Western An ...
, and in
Kyzikos
Cyzicus (; grc, Κύζικος ''Kúzikos''; ota, آیدینجق, ''Aydıncıḳ'') was an ancient Greek town in Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balıkesir Province of Turkey. It was located on the shoreward side of the present Kapıdağ Peni ...
(situated farther north in Asia Minor, in the region of
Mysia
Mysia (UK , US or ; el, Μυσία; lat, Mysia; tr, Misya) was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor (Anatolia, Asian part of modern Turkey). It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on th ...
). In
Pontic Mesembria, on the Black Sea coast of
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
, 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 , , , or , and was probably an intermediate sound during the phonetic change from the earlier
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
clusters towards the later sound, possibly an
affricate similar to .
Arcadian san
In one attested document, the
Arcadocypriot Greek
Arcadocypriot, or southern Achaean, was an ancient Greek dialect spoken in Arcadia in the central Peloponnese and in Cyprus. Its resemblance to Mycenaean Greek, as it is known from the Linear B corpus, suggests that Arcadocypriot is its desc ...
of
Mantineia
Mantineia (also Mantinea ; el, Μαντίνεια; also Koine Greek ''Antigoneia'') was a city in ancient Arcadia, Greece, which was the site of two significant battles in Classical Greek history.
In modern times it is a former municipality in ...
used an innovative letter similar to И (), probably derived from a variant of
san, to denote what was probably a -like sound in environments reflecting etymological
Proto-Greek
The Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic) is the Indo-European language which was the last common ancestor of all varieties of Greek, including Mycenaean Greek, the subsequent ancient Greek dialects (i.e., Attic, Ionic, Ae ...
.
Pamphylian digamma
In the highly-divergent
Pamphylian Greek
Pamphylian was a little-attested dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Pamphylia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Its origins and relation to other Greek dialects are uncertain, though a number of scholars have proposed isoglosses with ...
, the letter
digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
() existed side by side with another distinctive form . It has been surmised that in this dialect the sound may have changed to labiodental in some environments. The F-shaped letter may have stood for the new sound, while the special И-shaped form signified those positions where the old sound was preserved.
Boeotian raised E
A special letter for a variant realization of the short sound, , was briefly used in the
Boeotia
Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( el, Βοιωτία; modern: ; ancient: ), formerly known as Cadmeis, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its lar ...
n city of
Thespiae
Thespiae ( ; grc, Θεσπιαί, Thespiaí) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek city (''polis'') in Boeotia. It stood on level ground commanded by the low range of hills which run eastward from the foot of Mount Helicon to Thebes, Greece, Thebe ...
in the late 5th century BC. It occurred in the place of normal epsilon () whenever the sound stood before another vowel. Since its shape suggests a compromise form between an and an , it is thought that it denoted a
raised allophone, approaching . 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 generally had a straight stem () in all local alphabets in the archaic period. was mostly crossed ( or ). typically had a vertical stem (), and was most often . and had frequent variants where the strokes branched out from the bottom of the character, resulting in and respectively. 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 was typically , with the arms diagonal and the stem descending below the lowest arm; it developed to the modern orthogonal form during the archaic era. An analogous change was observed with , which changed from to either or . Early forms of typically had the left stem descending lower than the right stem (); this remained a distinguishing feature in those varieties that also had san () for .
also typically had a shorter right stem (). The top of could be curved rather than angular, approaching a Latin P (). The Greek , in turn, could have a downward tail on the right, approaching a Latin R. In many red varieties, 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 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 that was later to become the standard form in late antiquity and Byzantine writing did not yet occur in the archaic alphabets.
The letter 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 and 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 (either pointed or rounded) were common in many mainland varieties and in the West, where they inspired the Italic C; L-like shapes of were particularly common in Euboea, Attica and Boeotia.
Achaean colonies had a in the form of single -like vertical stroke.
The letter had different minor variants depending on the position of the middle bar, with some of them being characteristic of local varieties.
The letter 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, Gortys or Gortyna ( el, Γόρτυν, , or , ) is a municipality, and an archaeological site, on the Mediterranean island of Crete away from the island's capital, Heraklion. The seat of the municipality is the village Agioi Deka. Gorty ...
), and (
Thera
Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek language, Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English language, English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast ...
), (Argos), (
Melos), (
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
), (
Megara,
Byzantium), (
Cyclades
The Cyclades (; el, Κυκλάδες, ) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The nam ...
).
, , and 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.
Important local alphabets
Old Attic
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
, until the late 5th century BC, used a variant of the "light blue" alphabet, with for and for . was used for all three sounds (correspondinɡ to classical respectively), and was used for all of (corresponding to classical respectively). was used for the consonant . 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
Euboea
Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest poin ...
: a form of that resembled a Latin ''L'' () and a form of 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
''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...
Eucleides
Eucleides ( grc-gre, Εὐκλείδης) was archon of Athens towards the end of the fifth century BC. He contributed towards the re-establishment of democracy during his years in office (403–402 BC). He is also believed to have contributed to ...
who oversaw the decision.
Euboean
![Nestor Cup Pithekoussai](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Nestor_Cup_Pithekoussai.svg)
The
Euboea
Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest poin ...
n alphabet was used in the cities of
Eretria
Eretria (; el, Ερέτρια, , grc, Ἐρέτρια, , literally 'city of the rowers') is a town in Euboea, Greece, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow South Euboean Gulf. It was an important Greek polis in the 6th and 5th centur ...
and
Chalcis
Chalcis ( ; Ancient Greek & Katharevousa: , ) or Chalkida, also spelled Halkida (Modern Greek: , ), is the chief town of the island of Euboea or Evia in Greece, situated on the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point. The name is preserved from ...
and in related colonies in southern
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, notably in
Cumae
Cumae ( grc, Κύμη, (Kumē) or or ; it, Cuma) was the first ancient Greek colony on the mainland of Italy, founded by settlers from Euboea in the 8th century BC and soon becoming one of the strongest colonies. It later became a rich Ro ...
and in
Pithecusae
Ischia ( , , ) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about from Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Roughly trapezoidal in shape, it measures approximately east to west ...
. It was through this variant that the Greek alphabet was transmitted to Italy, where it gave rise to the
Old Italic alphabets
The Old Italic scripts are a family of similar ancient writing systems used in the Italy, Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, ...
, including
Etruscan __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
** Etrusca ...
and ultimately the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
. 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 representing and for . Like most early variants it also lacked , and used for the consonant rather than for the vowel . It also kept the archaic letters
digamma
Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
() for and
qoppa
Koppa or qoppa (; as a modern numeral sign: ) is a letter that was used in early forms of the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician qoph (). It was originally used to denote the sound, but dropped out of use as an alphabetic character in fav ...
() for .
San () for 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 ''lambda'' that resembled a Latin L and a form of ''sigma'' that resembled a Latin S. Other elements foreshadowing the Latin forms include ''gamma'' shaped like a pointed C (), ''delta'' shaped like a pointed D (), and ''rho'' shaped like R ().
The classicist
Barry B. Powell
Barry Bruce Powell (born 1942) is an American classical scholar. He is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, author of the widely used textbook ''Classical Myth'' and many other books. Trained at ...
has proposed that Euboea may have been where the Greek alphabet was first employed in the late 9th century BC, and that it may have been invented specifically for the purpose of recording epic poetry.
["Introduction," The Poems of Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, the Shield of Herakles, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2017]
Corinthian
![Crater Hippolyte Painter Louvre E636](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Crater_Hippolyte_Painter_Louvre_E636.jpg)
The
Doric Doric may refer to:
* Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece
** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians
* Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture
* Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode
* Doric dialect (Scotland)
* Doric ...
dialect of
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part o ...
was written in a distinctive alphabet that belonged to the "eastern" ("dark blue") type as far as its treatment of was concerned, but differed from the Ionic and classical alphabet in several other ways. Corinth used
san () instead of for , and retained
qoppa
Koppa or qoppa (; as a modern numeral sign: ) is a letter that was used in early forms of the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician qoph (). It was originally used to denote the sound, but dropped out of use as an alphabetic character in fav ...
() for what was presumably a retracted
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
of before back vowels. As described above, it also had an uncommon system for marking its -sounds, with a -shaped letter used for and (classical and respectively), and used only for long close (classical ). For the consonant , in turn, Corinth used the special form . The letter was written like a (, ).
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). Letters representing long vowels are highlighted in yellow; digraphs are shown in parentheses.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
''Poinikastas'' – Epigraphic Sources for Early Greek Writing Epigraphy site based on the archives of
Lilian Jeffery
Lilian Hamilton "Anne" Jeffery, (5 January 1915 – 29 September 1986) was a British archaeologist, classical philologist and epigraphist best remembered for her 1961 work ''The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece''. Building on the work of Adolf ...
, Oxford University.
*
*
*
* Revised and expanded translation of the Greek edition. (Christidis is the editor of the translation, not the 2001 original.)
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
Searchable Greek Inscriptions epigraphical database, Packard Humanities Institute
{{Greek language
Greek alphabet
Archaic Greece