What people did the Greeks get their alphabet from?
The Greeks learned about writing and the alphabet from the Phoenicians. They took much of their alphabet from the Phoenician alphabet, but they added a few new letters. They also assigned some of the letters to vowel sounds. The Greek alphabet was the first alphabet to use vowels.
Which alphabet did the Greeks borrow?
The Phoenician alphabet
In the 8th century at the latest but probably much earlier, the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from the Phoenicians in the framework of their commercial contacts. The Phoenician alphabet had separate signs for the Semitic consonants, but the vowels were left unexpressed.
What is the first Greek alphabet?
Phoenician alphabet
Most specialists believe that the Phoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek during the early 8th century BC, perhaps in Euboea. The earliest known fragmentary Greek inscriptions date from this time, 770–750 BC, and they match Phoenician letter forms of c. 800–750 BC.
Did the Greeks rely on the sea?
Because farming didn’t produce huge surpluses, and travel across the terrain was difficult, the Greeks came to depend on the sea. People living near the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Ionian Seas became fishers, sailors, and merchants.
Does Greek come from Phoenician?
Where did the Greek alphabet come from? The Greek alphabet is a writing system that was developed in Greece about 1000 BCE. It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all modern European alphabets. It was derived from the North Semitic alphabet via that of the Phoenicians.
What is the Greek script called?
In 403 bce, 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.