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Basic grammar and morphology, with examples. Who were the first Greek speakers? Where did they come from? Anthropological History Who were these Greek speakers? Classics links as well as others of interest.
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Ancient Greek appears to represent the first example of an alphabet and writing system based on sounds. The first orthography of Greek, Linear B, did not include separate characters for vowels. Rather they were represented in conjunction with consonants. Since Greek contains many syllables that exist outside this orthography, Linear B does not adequately represent the spoken language. It fails to take into account many consonant-vowel combinations that are possible in spoken language. Thus, several ways of reading a Linear B text exist. Greek began to use an alphabetic system that represented a full range of both consonants and vowels around 1000-900 B.C. This new alphabet slowly adapted from the Semitic alphabet. Scholars believe that this Greek innovation occurred because the Semitic alphabet, while adequate in the past, simply could not convey the Greek language properly. "Most important, some of the symbols of the Semitic alphabet, which represented only consonants, were made to represent vowels: the Semitic consonants 'alef, he, yod, 'ayin, and vav became the Greek letters alpha, epsilon, iota, omicron, and upsilon, representing the vowels a,e,i,o, and u, respectively. The addition of symbols for the vowel sounds greatly increased the accuracy and legibility of the writing system for non-Semitic languages." "Before the 5th century BC the Greek alphabet could be divided into two principal branches, the Ionic (eastern) and the Chalcidian (western); differences between the two branches were minor. The Chalcidian alphabet probably gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet of Italy in the 8th century BC and hence indirectly to the other Italic alphabets, including the Latin alphabet, which is now used for most European languages. In 403 BC, however, Athens officially adopted the Ionic alphabet as written in Miletus, and in the next 50 years almost all local Greek alphabets, including the Chalcidian, were replaced by the Ionic script, which thus became the classical Greek alphabet. " "The early Greek alphabet was written, like its Semitic forebears, from right to left. This gradually gave way to the boustrophedon style, and after 500 BC Greek was always written from left to right. The classical alphabet had 24 letters, 7 of which were vowels, and consisted of capital letters, ideal for monuments and inscriptions." Paraphrased from: "writing" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Quoted from: "Greek alphabet" Encyclopædia Britannica Online. |