Greek Alphabet

The Greeks were the first Europeans to learn to write with an alphabet, and from them writing was brought to the rest of Europe, eventually leading down to all modern European alphabets. The Greek alphabet has been in continuous use for the past 2,750 years!

The Greeks of the eighth century BC were entirely unaware that five centuries earlier, their ancestors in the Mycenaean civilisation had written the Greek language in a script now known as Linear B. This script, finally deciphered in 1952, consisted of symbols representing whole syllables at once.

Greeks adopted the alphabet the Phoenician script, mostly like during the late 9th century BCE. In fact, Greek historian Herotodus (5th century BCE) called the Greek letters "phoinikeia grammata" (φοινικήια γράμματα), which means Phoenician letters. Unlike Greek, the Phoenician alphabet only had letters for consonants. When the Greeks adopted the alphabet, they found letters representing sounds not found in Greek. Instead of throwing them away, they modified the extraneous letters to represent vowels. For example, the Phoenician letter 'aleph (which stood for a glottal stop) became the Greek letter alpha (which stands for [a] sound).

There were many variants of the early Greek alphabet, each suited to a local dialect. Eventually the Ionian alphabet was adopted in all Greek-speaking states, but before that happened, the Euboean variant was carried to the Italic peninsula and adopted by Etruscan and eventually the Romans. The following chart presents the modern alphabet, and pronunciations.

Greek Letter Capital/small	Transcription (pronunciation)	Modern pronunciation
	Alpha (alfa)	/a/, as in "father"
	Beta (vita)	/v/, as in "vet"
	Gamma (gama)	/g/ as in go, but before vowels such as iota and epsilon, y as in yet, and before gamma, kappa, xi, or chi, n as in sing
	Delta (delta)	/th/ as in then (but not thin); contrast theta below
	Epsilon (epsilon)	/e/ as in set
	Zeta (zita)	/z/ as in zoo
	Eta (ita)	ee (/i/) as in meet
	Theta (thita)	th as in thin (but not then); contrast delta above
	Iota (jota)	ee (/i/) as in meet or y as in yet
	Kappa (kapa)	ck as in sack
	Lambda (lamda)	/l/ as in light
	Mu (mi)	/m/ as in mouse
	Nu (ni)	/n/ as in nose
	Xi (ksi)	/ks/ as in kicks or x as in ax
	Omicron (omikron)	/o/ as in tote or boat
	Pi (pi)	/p/ as in pan
	Rho (ro)	/r/ more like the Spanish trilled r than English r.
	Sigma (sigma)	/s/ as in sister
	Tau (taf)	/t/, as in "pot"
	Upsilon (ipsilon)	ee (/i/) as in meet
	Phi (fi)	/f/ as in fan or phone
	Chi (ci)	[ch], a sound that does not exist in English (but exists in Scottish, as in "loch"; German: "Bach").
	Psi (psi)	/ps/ as in lips
	Omega (omega)	/o/ as in tote