![]() μπ = in the middle of words at the beginning.ντ = in the middle of words at the beginning.ηυ = before vowels and voiced consonants elsewhere.ευ = before vowels and voiced consonants elsewhere.αυ = before vowels and voiced consonants elsewhere.Χ = before back vowels, and before front vowels.When it is preceded by a voiceless consonont and followed by another vowel it is pronounced as, e.g. When the sound is preceded by a voiced consonant and followed by another vowel, it becomes, e.g.Ν = before an unstressed i followed by another vowel, e.g.Λ = before an unstressed i followed by another vowel, e.g.Κ = before back vowels, and before front vowels.Before front vowels, it is pronounced and transliterated y Hear a recording of Modern Greek pronunciation Greek alphabet (Classical Attic pronunciation)īy Vasiliki Baskos of It is uncertain what names were given to the letters, and some letters had more than one form. Greek was written mainly from right to left in horizontal lines at this time. This alphabet is based on inscriptions from Crete dated to about 800 BC. The letter sigma has a special form which is used when it appears at the end of a word.In 1982 the diacritics representing breathings, which were not widely used after 1976, were officially abolished by presidential decree. ![]() Diacritics to represent stress and breathings were added to the alphabet in around 200 BC.Writing direction: Originally written horizontal lines either from right to left or alternating from right to left and left to right (boustrophedon/ βουστροφηδόν).Īround 500 BC the direction of writing changed to horizontal lines running from left to right.Type of writing system: alphabet - the first one to include vowels.Today the Greek alphabet is used only to write Greek, however at various times in the past it has been used to write such languages as Lydian, Phrygian, Thracian, Gaulish, Hebrew, Arabic, Old Ossetic, Albanian, Turkish, Aromanian, Gagauz, Surguch and Urum. The minuscule or lower case letters first appeared sometime after 800 AD and developed from the Byzantine minuscule script, which developed from cursive writing. The capital letters of the modern Greek alphabet are almost identical to those of the Ionic alphabet. The blue group developed into the modern Greek alphabet, while the red group developed into the Etruscan alphabet, other alphabets of ancient Italy and eventually the Latinīy the early 4th century BC, the epichoric alphabets were replaced by the eastern Ionic alphabet. These local alphabets, known as epichoric, can be divided into three groups: green, blue and red. The result was the world's first fully phonemic alphabet which represented both consonant and vowel sounds.Īt first, there were a number of different versions of the alphabet used in various different Greek cities. New letters were also devised: Φ (phi), Χ (chi) and Ψ (psi). When the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet to write their language they used five of the Phoenician consonants to represent vowel sounds: yodh (□) became Ι (iota), waw (□) became Υ (upsilon), 'aleph (□) became Α (alpha), 'ayin (□) became Ο (omicron), and he (□) became Ε (epsilon). For example, alpha comes for the Canaanite aleph (ox) and beta from beth (house). The original Canaanite meanings of the letter names was lost when the alphabet was adapted for Greek. It was developed from the Canaanite/Phoenician alphabet and the order and names of the letters are derived from Phoenician. The Greek alphabet has been in continuous use since about 750 BC. ![]() On Crete another script, known as the Cypriot syllabary, was used to write the local variety of Greek between about 1200 and 300 BC. ![]() This variety of Greek is known as Mycenaean. Greek was first written in Mycenae with a script known as Linear B, which was used between about 15 BC.
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