Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

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

Page 456

THE GREEK ALPHABET AND ITS OFFSHOOTS 455
Varieties of Early Greek Alphabet The different ways in which these adaptations were carried out permit us to distinguish the two main branches of the early Greek alphabet, the eastern and the western (Fig. 200), which again sub-divide, each into secondary branches. But within this general grouping there were many local peculiarities. In practice many little states had each its own variant and it was long before anything like uniformity was introduced
The eastern alphabets-of which the most important was the lonicincluded the alphabets of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, of the Cyclades and Attica, of Megara, Corinth, Sicyon and Argos, and of the Ionian colonies of Magna Græcia. The early alphabets of the Dorian
of Thera, Melos and Crete constituted a secondary branch of the eastern alphabets.
The western family included the Chalcidian alphabet (of Eubara). the alphabets of Breotia. Phocis, Locri. Thessaly, of the Peloponnesus except its north-eastern part, and those of the non-Ionian colonies of Magna Græcia.
We do not know whether the two main branches were independent or inter-dependent, that is, whether the Greek alphabet was first constructed in one place or in several. Some scholars consider the lonic alphabet as the earliest, others hold that the western forms were earlier than the eastern. It is likely, however, that the early alphabet of the Isle of Thera was the prototype of all the Greek alphabets.
Greek Votels In all Greek alphabets the Semitic consonants aleph, he, waw, yodh and 'ayin were adopted to represent vowels. Aleph, a smooth breathing in the Semitic alphabet, was consistently used as alpha in the Greek alphabets for the sound a. A parallel case was the Semitic consonant yodh, which came to represent consistently the vowel-sound i (the consonant y having disappeared from Greek in prehistoric times). He became the Greek epsilon: it was used as short or long e in those alphabets (belonging mainly to the western family) in which the Semitic heth, a guttural, rough breathing sound he was adopted to denote the rough breathing, spiritus asper, while in other Greek alphabets it came to represent the short e, and heth the long e. A secondary form of wat became the diganmu (a consonantal u. akin to English to): this sound was given up in some dialects (in Ionic, for instance), in which, therefore, the letter not being needed was discarded; it survived in certain dialects till it was gradually discontinued in classical times, the sign surviving as the numeral 6. Another form of the Semitic xut was taken into use as the vowel upsilon and placed at the end of the Greek nlphabet, following tau. The Semitic guttural consonant 'ayin was taken over, as the Greek