Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 454

THE GREEK ALPHABET AND ITS OFFSHOOTS 453 Like the Semitic alphabetic scripts, the carliest Greek script was written from right to left (Fig. 197), a style which was later superseded by the boustrophedon direction of writing (Fig. 198, 1-3), that is, as already explained, alternately from right to left and from left to right, as the ox draws the plough. In both styles, the writing sometimes began from the bottom and went upwards. There are, however, extant some early inscriptions written from left to right (Fig. 198, + and 199). After 500 B.C. Greek writing invariably proceeded from left to right and from top to bottom
CHANGES INTRODUCED IN THE GREEK ALPHABET
The letters b.g. d., k, l, m, n, p, r, t, which expressed sounds common to the Semitic and Greek languages, were taken over without change.
EASIERNONTO SPAZO ANTIYANYAMAN
AVTAE TO SYANTONY MATI XOTI ET NEONA NEKOSKATIE) EI OOTAMOS ANI ENOTA fosas E POTASIMTO
A IOS AEM ENEA AMENOMAMOS KAINMEQOJOD AND
Fig. 199 Early Greek inscriptions written from left to right T, Inscription from Abu Sim
bel (Nubis) of the sixth
century 1.6 (7) 2. Fragment of an altat of
the archon Peisistratus, the nephew of the famous tyrant (ca. 500 D.C)
MNEMATOAEHESAP+ESTEISS
Other Semitic letters were adopted for slightly different Greek sounds; the letter Evuto was adopted to express the Greek digumma, the teth, which represents the hard Semitic t, was adopted for the Greek th, the qoph, which expresses the Semitic emphatic k, was adopted as koppa, differentiated from kappa. By the fifth century B.C. koppa had disappeared from the eastern alphabets, because the language did not require it, but it lingered in the west, and survived as the numeral go.
The most remarkable adaptations made by the Greeks were: (1) the introduction of vowel-representation (the Semitic alphabet being entirely consonantal), or rather the allocation of certain of the twenty-two Semitic consonants to Greek vowel-sounds; (2) the different arrangement of the hissing or sibilant sounds (of which the Semitic alphabet had a great variety); (3) the addition of certain letters for the representation of sounds not expressed by any of the Semitic letters, such as ph, ps, kh and r.