Greek minuscule was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

writing style which was developed as a book hand in

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

manuscripts during the 9th and 10th centuries. It replaced the earlier style of

uncial Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one ...

writing, from which it differed in using smaller, more rounded and more connected letter forms, and in using many ligatures. Many of these forms had previously developed as parts of more informal

cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...

writing. The basic letter shapes used in the minuscule script are the ancestors of modern

lower case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

Greek letters. From the 10th century onwards, most Byzantine manuscripts of classical and early Christian Greek works were gradually rewritten in the new minuscule style, and few of the older uncial manuscripts were preserved. For this reason, uncial manuscripts are today extremely rare, while early minuscule manuscripts are often the oldest preserved sources attesting an ancient work and may therefore be of central importance for its

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...

study. Manuscripts from the oldest phase of minuscule writing (mid-9th to mid-10th century) are known in scholarship today as ''codices vetustissimi'' ("oldest codices"). Those from the mid-10th to the mid-12th centuries are known as ''codices vetusti'' ("old codices"), and later ones as ''codices recentiores'' ("newer codices"). Minuscule writing remained in use for handwriting throughout the Byzantine and into the post-Byzantine era. In the modern era, western printers used minuscule book hands as a model for developing early Greek print fonts. Like with Latin, it became common to mix minuscule writing with some uncial or

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

letters, with the latter used for emphasis, in titles and initials. From this practice, the modern orthographic system of

letter case Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ...

for Greek arose. In modern Greek writing, the upper case letters are generally modeled on the letter shapes of ancient inscriptions, while the lower case letters are based on the tradition of minuscule handwriting.

References

Thompson, ''Introduction'', p.159.

External links

How to read a Greek Minuscule Text

Renaissance Greek Font with Ligatures

Handbook Of Greek And Latin Palaeography
{{Authority control Writing systems Greek alphabet Byzantine literature Western calligraphy

See also

References

External links