Attic Greek - Alphabet

Alphabet

The classic Attic Alphabet is made up of the familiar 24 (capital) Greek letters: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ξ, Ο, Π, Ρ, Σ, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω.

It has seven vowels: Α, Ε, Η (long e), Ι, Ο, Υ, Ω (long o). The rest are consonants.

The first form of written Greek was not the Greek alphabet as it later became known, but the syllabary known as Linear B, in which one character stood for the combination of a consonant and a vowel.

The first use of what became the classic Greek alphabet remains unknown. By the time it was attested for in general use in the 8th century BC it was already divided into a western and eastern variety, from which the Etruscan/Latin alphabets and the later Greek alphabet came respectively. What is today referred to as the Greek alphabet was originally the Phoenician alphabet borrowed to spell Greek words, with some originally Semitic consonantal letters – such as aleph (Greek Alpha = A), he (Greek Epsilon = E), and 'ayin (Greek Omicron = O) – used to represent Greek vowels. The creation of true vowel letters was the most revolutionary linguistic contribution of the Greeks to the development of the alphabet. (For the early forms of the letters, the full complement of letters, and the first inscriptions, see the article Greek alphabet.)

As the utility of an alphabet became evident, local varieties (sometimes called "epichoric") came into use. The early Attic alphabet still did not distinguish between long and short vowels (i.e. ε and η, ο and ω). It lacked the letters Ψ (psi) and Ξ (xi), using ΦΣ and ΧΣ instead. Lower case letters (α, β, γ, etc.) and iota subscript (a mediaeval invention) were still far in the future. Digamma (no longer in use in the Classical period) stood for a W.

Meanwhile in Ionia across the Aegean, a new Ionic form of the Attic alphabet was coming into being. It distinguished between long and short o (Ω and Ο) and stopped using Η (eta) to mark the rough breathing (i.e. H sound). Instead it created a sign for a long e with it, keeping the letter Ε for the short e. The digamma dropped out, and Ψ and Ξ came into existence, bringing the Attic alphabet to its classic 24-letter form. By 403 BCE, the by now internationally experienced city-state of Athens had perceived a need to standardize the alphabet, so it officially adopted the Ionic alphabet in that year. Many other cities had already adopted it.

When the ordinary citizen of Ancient Greece read inscriptions and the educated Greek read literature, what they saw was an all upper case Ionic alphabet: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, etc. By the time lower case letters, iota subscripts, accent marks, rough or smooth breathing marks over letters, and punctuation appeared in written Greek in the Middle Ages, Attic Greek writings had not been produced by native speakers for some centuries. Ancient Attic literature as published today thus makes use of a number of such non-ancient features. Uninformed modern readers might think that what they see on the page is the writing system exactly as the ancient Greeks used it in Classical Greece, but it is really Ancient Greek as transcribed by mediaeval Byzantine scribes.