– History of Greek alphabet:
– Used for Greek language since late 9th or early 8th century BC
– Derived from Phoenician alphabet
– Earliest known alphabetic script with distinct vowels and consonants
– Existed in local variants in Archaic and early Classical times
– Euclidean alphabet standardized by end of 4th century BC
– Development of Greek alphabet:
– Originally had 24 letters
– Ordered from alpha to omega
– Uppercase and lowercase forms for each letter
– Evolution from local variants to standardized Euclidean alphabet
– Continues to be used for Greek writing today
– Distinctive features of Greek alphabet:
– Incorporates vowels and consonants
– 24 letters in total
– Uppercase and lowercase versions
– Unique ordering from alpha to omega
– Early script with advanced features for its time
– Influence of Greek alphabet:
– Basis for many other alphabets
– Impact on Western writing systems
– Used in mathematics, science, and other disciplines
– Symbolism in Greek culture and history
– Legacy in literature, philosophy, and art
– Modern usage of Greek alphabet:
– Integral part of Greek language and culture
– Utilized in academic and scholarly contexts
– Pronunciation and spelling conventions
– Symbolic significance in fraternal organizations
– Adaptation in digital communication and technology
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as well as consonants. In Archaic and early Classical times, the Greek alphabet existed in many local variants, but, by the end of the 4th century BC, the Euclidean alphabet, with 24 letters, ordered from alpha to omega, had become standard and it is this version that is still used for Greek writing today.
| Greek alphabet | |
|---|---|
 Ellinikó alfávito "Greek alphabet" in the modern Greek language | |
| Script type | |
Time period | c. 800 BC – present |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Official script | |
| Languages | Greek |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Grek(200), Greek |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Greek |
| |
The uppercase and lowercase forms of the 24 letters are:
- Α α, Β β, Γ γ, Δ δ, Ε ε, Ζ ζ, Η η, Θ θ, Ι ι, Κ κ, Λ λ, Μ μ, Ν ν, Ξ ξ, Ο ο, Π π, Ρ ρ, Σ σ/ς, Τ τ, Υ υ, Φ φ, Χ χ, Ψ ψ, Ω ω.
The Greek alphabet is the ancestor of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Like Latin and Cyrillic, Greek originally had only a single form of each letter; it developed the letter case distinction between uppercase and lowercase in parallel with Latin during the modern era. Sound values and conventional transcriptions for some of the letters differ between Ancient and Modern Greek usage because the pronunciation of Greek has changed significantly between the 5th century BC and today. Modern and Ancient Greek also use different diacritics, with modern Greek keeping only the stress accent (acute) and the diaeresis.
Apart from its use in writing the Greek language, in both its ancient and its modern forms, the Greek alphabet today also serves as a source of international technical symbols and labels in many domains of mathematics, science, and other fields.
