The alphabet that we call Greek
All the treasures of science and art of the Western world have been written in alphabets, which were all born in Greece. (Latin and Slavic).
And the name alphabet, common to all European languages, testifies to the common Greek origin.
The alphabet that we call Greek is not the oldest script of the Greek language. By reading the Mycenaean script (Linear B), it was certified that this was the oldest script of texts, dating back to Mycenaean times. However, these two writing systems have no relation to each other, neither in the form of the symbols nor in their function.
Mycenaean is syllabographic, meaning that each symbol expresses a syllable, while Greek is phonetic, meaning that each symbol-letter expresses a particular sound-phone.
This property of the Greek alphabet, so simple and understandable today, was a world-historical conquest of man.
Ancient Greek tradition attributed its invention to various mythical figures, with Cadmus, king of Tyre, being the most prevalent.
Modern research has proven that the Greek alphabet did not copy but in some way used as a basis the Phoenician script, which was not in my opinion an alphabet, but a way of writing.
Something intermediate between phonetic and syllabic writing, which had 22 elements, and above that, it was formed slowly, presenting various variations by region.
Thus, numerous Greek alphabets circulated until the Ionic finally prevailed, around 400 BC.
But the name Phoenician alphabet is particularly relevant. Because the name Phoenicia is Greek.
The root "φοιν" means red in Greek, the word "φοινικεος" means purple-red. The "Phoenix" is the bird reborn from the ashes.
Chaonia was a region of Epirus inhabited by the Chaonians and their capital was "Phoenix". Mythology mentions the Phoenix tree by Leto under "Phoenix was born".
"Phoenix" is found as a name in a number of Greek mythical figures. As well as in two tragedies, by Sophocles and Euripides.
But in addition, we must note that Phoenicians as a nation or people did not exist.
When we say Phoenicians, we mean a group of peoples, such as the Minoans who migrated there in 1500 BC after the destruction they suffered from the eruption of the volcano of Thyra.
The Minoans moved to the coast of Phoenicia because those affected by the volcano lived on the coast of Crete, and they were a people engaged in shipping and trade.
And they played a leading role in the coastal cities due to their superior spiritual and cultural level.
But even before 1500 BC the Minoans must have established colonial cities in this area to serve their commercial transactions.
The inhabitants of Phoenicia were also the descendants of the Canaanites, like the Arameans, the Hittites, the Sumerians, the Hebrews, but especially the dynamic and independent cities, Byblos whose name is also Greek, because byblos was the Greek word for papyrus.
As Sidon, and Tyre. These city-states had a way of organizing themselves like in the Greek area.
This shows that their population was largely Greek.
All of the above seems to have been known by Herodotus who states that the Greeks got writing from the Phoenicians, because he meant the Greeks of Phoenicia, without being certain because he states "as it seems to me".
Perhaps the findings I mention below make us assume that the Greeks took elements of writing from the Phoenicians.
But how can we explain that the Homeric epics, written around 700 BC, constitute a masterpiece of literary creation?
This means that the Greeks had long-term verbal and written knowledge, and why is there no similar literary text among the peoples of Phoenicia, assuming that they preceded the Greeks.
However, I believe that the Minoans who moved to Phoenicia after the devastating effect that the Santorini volcano had on them, are also the originators of the so-called Phoenician script.
However, the Greeks made basic modifications to the Phoenician script, radically transforming it.
The Phoenician script had only consonants and some semi-vowels, but no vowels.
They used five of the Phoenician elements to represent five vowels, namely α, ε, ι, ο, υ.
In addition to the vowels, many interventions and additions were made that differed by region.
Such as the addition of the new letters, φ, χ, ξ, and ψ.
The first two, depending on the region, before their addition were rendered with ΠΧ, and ΚΗ,
(the addition of Η was done to declare voice coarsening).
The ξ, was rendered with ΚΣ or ΧΣ and the ψ, with ΠΣ or ΦΣ.
In Euboea, X was not used to represent χ, but ξ, and thus it was transferred to Italy in Latin.
φ was immediately accepted by all the alphabets in circulation. Then the separation of vowels into long and short was made. Many long-term morphemes followed to take its current form.
The most prevalent alphabets were the Ionian, the Corinthian, and the Athenian, Euboean, Elis, Arcadian, Cycladic, etc. If we study the table I quote, we see how the Greek alphabet was formed and what influence it had from the Phoenician script. But also by examining each letter separately, we will observe many formations until each one takes its final current form.
In Greek, alpha means a, beta means b, and so on.
In Phoenician, alpha, aleph is ox. The beta beth is the house. The gamma gimel is the camel, and it continues. It is what I said at the beginning that it was something intermediate between syllabographic and phonetic writing. In Phoenician, writing was done from right to left, and the Greeks used the same method. In the 6th century, the writing “boustrophedon” was followed, that is, as oxen plow the fields.
With this writing, Solon handed over to the Athenians the legislation he had compiled.
Later, because they saw that most people are right-handed, they changed the writing and wrote it from left to right.
The time of influence of writing by the Phoenicians cannot be a specific date, but it happened slowly through the contacts that the peoples had from trade transactions.
Rhodes and Thyra are speculated to have been the first entry gates. It must have begun in my opinion in 1000 BC and by 850 BC it had been completed.
In any case, the formation of the alphabet was not done by the merchants, they simply transported it to their homelands, and there, ingenious Greeks, processed and shaped it.
This whole process of gradual formation, and until it became the property of more people, lasted for many years.
The first inscriptions in Phoenician alphabetic linear writing are those of "Ahiram", around 1050 - 1030 BC; "Zahar - Baal" in 1070-1060 BC; "Ithobaal" in 980-985 BC; "Jochemilk" in 960-950 BC; the calendar of "Gezer" in 930-925 BC.
This suggests that the Phoenician script was taken from the Phoenicians by the Greeks and not by the Phoenicians from the Greeks.
Because we find similar inscriptions in Greece from 800 BC onwards, such as the inscription of "Nestor of the cup", found on the island of Ischia, (Pithymna) in Italy in a tomb dating back to 740—725 BC.
The island of Pythymouse was settled by Greeks from Kymi in Euboea, between 770 and 760 BC.
The Kymi people, coming to their new homeland, also brought the Euboean alphabet, which had several differences from the others. In this alphabet, X was pronounced as ξ, Σ was written as C, Y as U. and it also had the letters D as δ, G as Γ, which were later adopted by the Latins, building the Latin alphabet on it. During the transition from the Mycenaean to the Greek alphabet, and based on the inscriptions found, we have a gap of 400 years. Some scholars assume that the Greeks during these years, presented a cultural gap. However, most scholars are of the opinion that if they had a cultural gap, they would not have succeeded in such substantial modifications by creating this alphabet.
This means that the management of the recording of writing was never interrupted, but that rather, materials that did not withstand time were used for writing.
These are generally the views of scholars of the Greek alphabet.
Certainly, some scholars are of the opinion that the Phoenicians took the alphabet from the Greeks and specifically from the Minoans. This has a logical basis, because the Minoans, as a people dominant in maritime trade, who had already invented the sundial, as well as an instrument through which safe navigation was achieved, and in order to better serve their commercial transactions, had certainly also dealt with the way of communicating with a writing system, first with the linear script B. which was exclusively syllabic.
Which evolved into the so-called Phoenician script which was something intermediate between syllabic and phonetic writing. I personally am of the opinion that no matter how we take it, the Alphabet is a creation of the Greeks, because in the mentioned dynamic cities of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre, from where you can see the first rudimentary steps of the alphabet began, a large part of the population was Greek. This is confirmed by their Greek names.
I also try to explain how the Minoans with their King Idomeneus participated in the Trojan War with a large naval force of 40 ships according to Apollodorus or 90 ships according to Diodorus Siculus.
Since the destruction they suffered from the Santorini volcano was terrifying, and they were never able to recover and become a strong naval power again.
Only if we move the Trojan War to a date before 1600 BC. then the Minoans were the great naval and commercial power of the Mediterranean.
This transposition also answers the question:
how does Homer, who recorded everything, not mention the greatest disaster that occurred in the Mediterranean area from the Santorini volcano?
In recent years, however, scholars have been troubled by the discovery in Dispilio, Kastoria, of an inscription on a wooden plaque, which was photographed and its age measured using the C14 carbon method by the professor of prehistoric archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Mr. Hourmouziadis.
The measurement showed that it is 7500 years old.On this plaque, there was writing that has not yet been deciphered. Unfortunately, however, this plaque, when it came to light, was destroyed.