Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet 9780521589079, 9780511552700

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures
1. An eighteenth-century child’s primer
2. The expected derivation of Greek sibilants from Phoenician
3. The actual derivation of Greek sibilants from Phoenician
4. Jeffery’s reconstruction of the shuffle of the sibilants
5. Historical stemma of φ, χ, ψ (and ξ)
6. The phonetic development of φ, χ, ψ
7. Hypothetical reconstruction of Homer in the adapter’s hand
8. Drawing of the first side of the Idalion tablet
9. The first sentence of the Idalion inscription rearranged to read from left to right, with interlinear transliteration
10. Cypriote and alphabetic writing compared
11. From the Yehomilk inscription (sixth-fourth centuries B.C.)
Tables
I. The place of early Greek letter forms in the development of Phoenician letter forms
II. The Greek and Phoenician signaries
III. Three early abecedaria
IV. Selected epichoric variation in the rendering of certain sounds
V. Selected epichoric variation in the values assigned to hēta, xei, qoppa, and the supplementals
VI. Theoretical reconstruction of the signary of the Cypriote syllabary (Koinē version)
Abbreviations
DR ~ R
RivStorIt ~ Z
A note on terms and phonetic transcriptions
Chronological charts
Maps
I. Greece and the Aegean coasts
II. The Near East c. 800 B.C.
III. South Italy and Sicily
IV. Kirchhoff’s colored map, central portion
Foreword: Why was the Greek alphabet invented?
1. Review of criticism: What we know about the origin of the Greek alphabet
Phoenician origins
Single introduction by a single man
The place of adaptation
The date of transmission
The moment of transmission
How the alphabet was learned
Excursus: the so-called acrophonic principle
The adapter and his informant, face to face
The shapes of the letters
Conclusions from letter shapes
The names of the signs
A note on the Semitic letter names
The forms of the Greek names
Observations
The sounds of the signs
The vowels
Excursus: “matres lectionis”
The problem of the sibilants
The problem of the supplementals φ, χ, ψ
The nature of the problem: shapes, order, values
“Red,” “blue,” and “green” scripts
The supplementals belong to the earliest alphabet; the problem of the primitives
How the values of the supplementals changed in the hands of the adapter’s successors
Conclusion
The adapter’s system
Summary and conclusion
2. Argument from the history of writing: How writing worked before the Greek alphabet
Elements in the art of writing
The history of writing
The terminology and theoretical functioning of lexigraphic writing
Two divisions of phonography: syllabography and alphabetic writing
Auxiliary marks, signs, devices
How logo-syllabic writing works: Egyptian hieroglyphic
An Egyptian word
Lexigraphic ambiguity in Egyptian writing: a connected text of average complexity
Observations
How syllabic writing works: the Cypriote syllabary
The Cypriote syllabary: general description
Annotation to Fig. 10
Observations
How syllabic writing works: Phoenician
The finds
A sample Phoenician text with exegesis
Observations
Summary and conclusion
Conditions for change in writing systems
Syllabic writing used to record hexametric verse
Observations
The idiosyncratic nature of Greek alphabetic writing
3. Argument from the material remains: Greek inscriptions from the beginning to c. 650 B.C.
The lack of semantic devices in early Greek writing
The lack of word, clause, and sentence division
“Back and forth, as the ox turns”
I. “Short” Greek inscriptions from the beginning to 650 B.C.
The Euboian finds: names, parts of names, possible parts of names and simple declarations of ownership
Other simple names
Proprietary inscriptions
Tombstones
Dedications
Fragmentary inscriptions, some hexametric
Abecedaria
II. “Long” Greek inscriptions from the beginning to 650 B.C.
The Dipylon oinochoe inscription: its origin and nature
The reading
The inscriber
The Cup of Nestor
The social background
The Mantiklos inscription
The Nikandre Inscription
The erastic inscriptions of Thera
Conclusions
4. Argument from coincidence: dating Greece’s earliest poet
I. What dates does archaeology give for objects, practices, and social realities mentioned in Homer?
Limitations of method
The use of the spear
The three- and four-horsed chariot
Helen’s silver work-basket
Free-standing temples
The practice of cremation
The prominence of Phoenicians
The absence of literacy
Odysseus’ brooch
The lamp that Athene carries
The Gorgoneion, referred to four times
The alleged description of hoplite tactics
The practice of sending home the ashes of the dead
The procession to place a robe on a seated statue of Athene in the Trojan citadel
Summary
II. Is there anything about the language of the Iliad and the Odyssey that can be dated?
III. What are the earliest outside references to Homer?
Written references
Artistic representations
Representations possibly inspired by the Iliad
Representations possibly inspired by the Odyssey
Representations possibly inspired by the Cycle
Representations possibly inspired by other sagas
Summary and observations
IV. Homer’s date in ancient tradition
Conclusions: the date of Homer
5. Conclusions from probability: how the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down
Writing and traditional song in Homer’s day
The aoidos in context
The unprecedented scope of the Iliad and the Odyssey
Conclusions
Homer’s audience: the Euboian connection
The legend of Palamedes
Envoi
Appendix I. Gelb’s theory of the syllabic nature of West Semitic writing
I. J. Gelb’s description of Egyptian phonetic signs as consisting solely of logograms and syllabograms
Debate on the syllabic nature of West Semitic writing
Observations
Appendix II. Homeric references in poets of the seventh century
Definitions
continuant ~ L
logo-syllabic ~ P
pulmonic ~ W
writing
Bibliography
Bass ~ Boardman
Boardman, J.: 1974 ~ Bundy
Bunnens ~ C
Chantraine, P.: 1968‒80 ~ D
Desborough, V. R. d’A., R. V. Nicholls, and M. R. Popham ~ E
Edwards ~ F
Friis Johansen ~ G
Goedicke ~ H
Hampe ~ Hoffmann
Hommell ~ J
Jeffery, L. H.: 1979 ~ K
Kleingünther ~ L
Lenormant ~ M
Masson, O. ~ Moscati
Moscati, S.: 1980 ~ P
Palmer, L. R.: 1968 ~ Puech
Pullum ~ R
Roscher ~ S
Schweitzer ~ Snodgrass
Snodgrass, A. M.: 1982 ~ V
Vernant, J.-P.: 1986 ~ W
Woolley ~ Z
Index
D ~ J
K ~ S
sibilants ~ Y

Citation preview

CO NREINANS

List offigures

page xiii

List of tables

xiv

Acknowledgements

XV

Abbreviations

Xvi

A note on terms and phonetic transcriptions

xix

Chronological charts

XX

Maps

XX1i

Foreword: Why was the Greek alphabet invented?

1

Review of criticism: What we know about the origin of the Greek alphabet Phoenician origins

5 5

Single introduction by a single man The place of adaptation The date of transmission The moment of transmission

10 12 18 20

The names of the signs The sounds of the signs

22 38

The vowels

2

I

|

42

The problem of the sibilants

46

The problem of the supplementals 9 x y

48

The adapter’s system

63

Summary

66

and conclusions

Argument from the history of writing: How writing worked before the Greek alphabet

Elements in the art of writing

68

69

xii

3

CONTENTS

How logo-syllabic writing works: Egyptian hieroglyphic

76

How syllabic writing works: the Cypriote syllabary How syllabic writing works: Phoenician Summary and conclusions

89

Argument from the material remains: Greek inscriptions from the beginning to c. 650 B.C. The lack of semantic devices in early Greek writing 1. “Short” Greek inscriptions from the beginning to

IOI

105

119 119

123

CROSOEB:Os5

u. “Long” Greek inscriptions from the beginning to 158

Gs OF OPB-Ce

Conclusions

4

181-

Argument from coincidence: Dating Greece’s earliest poet 1. What dates does archaeology give for objects, practices, and social realities mentioned in Homer?

u. Is there anything about the language of the //ad and the Odyssey that can be dated? 11. What are the earliest outside references to Homer? Iv. Homer’s date in ancient tradition Conclusions: the date of Homer

5

Conclusions from probability: how the //iad and Odyssey were written down ; Writing and traditional song in Homer’s day Conclusions

187

190 207 208 217 219

221

224 231

APPENDIX I: Gelb’s theory of the syllabic nature of West Semitic writing APPENDIX

II: Homeric

238 references in poets of the seventh century

246

Definitions

249

Bibliography

254

Index

277

FIGURES

An eighteenth-century child’s primer The expected derivation of Greek sibilants from Phoenician The actual derivation of Greek sibilants from Phoenician Jeffery’s reconstruction of the shuffle of the sibilants Historical stemma of 9 x y The phonetic development of 9 x y reconstruction of a Homeric text in the adapter’s Avgmt’_ NI WN DWHypothetical hand

page 21 46

47 47 wy 62

65

Drawing of the first side of the Idalion tablet

91

The first sentence of the Idalion inscription rewritten from left to right, with interlinear transliteration

94

5 fe)

Cypriote and alphabetic writing compared

96

II

From the Yehomilk inscription (sixth—fourth centuries B.C.)

104

TABLES

I The place of early Greek letter forms in the development of Phoenician letter forms Il The Greek and Phoenician signaries Ill Three early abecedaria IV Selected epichoric variation in the rendering of certain sounds V Selected epichoric variation in the values assigned to Aéta, xer, goppa, and the supplementals VI Theoretical reconstruction of the signary of the Cypriote syllabary (Koiné version)

page 7. 8

50 51 52 05

ABBREVIATIONS

For full citation of bibliographic entries in text, see Bibliography. AA Archdologischer Anzeiger AJA American Journal of Archaeology. The Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America AM Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archdologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung AnalOr Analecta Orientalia AO Archiv Orientdlni ArchCl Archeologia Classica ArchHom F. Matz and H. G. Buchholz, eds., Archaeologia Homerica (Gottingen, 1967— ) ASAtene Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente

AZ Archdologische Zeitung BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research BCH Bulletin de correspondance hellénique BonnJbb Bonner Jahrbiicher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn und des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande BPW Berliner philologische Wochenschrift BSA The Annual of the British School at Athens CA Classical Antiquity CAH Cambridge Ancient History CIE Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum (Leipzig, 1893— ) CIS Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (Paris, 1881— ) CP Classical Philology CQ Classical Quarterly CR Classical Review CRAI Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belleslettres DGE_ E. Schwyzer, ed., Dialectorum Graecarum exempla epigraphica potiora®

(Delectus inscriptionum Graecarum propter didlectum memorabilium) (Leipzig, 1923; reprinted Hildesheim, 1960)

ABBREVIATIONS

XVil

DR_ Donner, H., and W. Rollig, Kanaandische und aramdische Inschriften (Wiesbaden, 1962-4)

EGI

M. Guarducci, Epigrafia Greca 1 (Rome, 1967)

FGrHist

F. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin, 1926-58;

reprinted and augmented Leiden, 1957) FHG XK. Miiller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (Frankfurt-am-Main, 19753 reprint of 1841-1938 editions) GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies GrGr_ E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik 1*, in Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft (ed. W. Otto), 2.1.1 (Munich, 1968) HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology ICr Inscriptiones creticae ICS O. Masson, Les mscriptions chypriotes syllabiques: Recueil critique et commenté (Paris, 1961) IG _ Inscriptiones graecae JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JdI Jahrbuch des deutschen Archdologischen Instituts JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies

JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies LSAG L.H. Jeffery, The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford, 1961) LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, 4 Greek—English Lexicon (Oxford, 1968) MemLinc Memorte. Atti dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincet, Classe di scienze moralt, storiche e filologiche MusB Musée Belge MusHely Museum Helveticum NJbb [Neue] Jahrbiicher fiir Philologie und Padagogik; Neue Jahrbiicher fiir das klassische Altertum; Neue Jahrbiicher fiir Wissenschaft und Jugendbildung (the three being a continuous series) n.d. no date of publication given n.s. mew series no. number OJA Oxford Journal of Archaeology PP La Parola del Passato Prakt Tpoxtik& tis év “AOnvais “Apxaiodoyixtis “Etaipeias RA Revue archéologique RBPhil Revue belge de philologie et d histoire RE Pauly—Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft REA Revue des études anciennes RendLinc Atti dell Accademia Nazionale det Lincet. Rendiconti

RhM_

Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie

RivistArch

Rivista dell Istituto Nazionale d Archeologia e storia dell Arte

XVill

ABBREVIATIONS

RivStor[t

RPhil

Rivista storica ttaliana

Revue de philologie, de littérature et d histoire anciennes

SEG

Supplementum epigraphicum graecum

SIG?

W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum® (Leipzig, 1915-24)

SMEA StEtr TAPA_ WS YCS ZDMG_ ZPE

Studi micenei ed egeo-anatolict Studi etruschi Transactions of the American Philological Association Wrener Studien Yale Classical Studies Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift fiir Papyrologie und Epigraphik

A N O T E ON TERMS A N D P H O N E T I C TRANSCRIPTIONS

A classicist whose interests are primarily literary or historical is likely to find discussions of linguistic data perplexing. Terminology applied to writing can also be confusing. In ' Definitions' at the end of the book, after Appendix u, I give definitions of terms that my own experience shows need them. I have not hesitated to repeat definitions there that are given in the text. Although there is a standard language for describing language and, to a less degree, writing, there is no standard system of phonetic transcription. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is often advocated as a desirable standard, but different traditions of language study have evolved their own traditional symbol systems, which are not easily abandoned. For example, in Semitic studies the glottal stop is represented by the sign " ">" whereas Egyptologists represent the same phoneme as "J." In classical studies, phonetic transcriptions, as of Linear B or Cypriote writing, are given in Roman characters that represent " standard " English, equivalent to southern British English. Reduction of all phonetic representations in the interests of consistency to the signs favored by IPA violates the claims of different traditions and clarity within each of them. There is no good solution to this dilemma. In this book I adopt, in general, the traditional systems of symbolic transcription — Semitic, Egyptological, classical — that one might expect to find within each separate field. I will define my usage as I go. I will enclose symbols that refer to phonemes (sounds that determine meaning within a single language) within slashes / / ; symbols that refer to phonetic sounds (the universal sounds of human languages) I will enclose within brackets [ ]. Any other use of a sound symbol I will indicate by italics. On the whole I follow the usual conventions in transliterating from the Greek, although, because of the topic, I have been more conservative than many.

CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS

1600 LATE HELLADIC PERIOD

1500

1400

I HA

M

IIB

Y

IHAi

C

IIIA2

E

—Greek dynasty at Knossos —Palace at Knossos destroyed

- N 1300 - 1

- T r o y VI devastated by earthquake A IHB E

1200 —1

-

me

A

—Treasury of Atreus built —Final destruction of Thebes -Sack of Troy VIIA —Devastation at Mykenai and Tiryns —Pylos destroyed

N -Fall of Mykenai Dorian invasion; Aiolian migration SUBMYCENAEAN PERIOD D A R K

PROTOGEOMETRIC PERIOD -Transition to Iron Age Colonization of Ionia begins

A G E 900

-Ionian cities establishing themselves GEOMETRIC PERIOD —Dorian colonization of Dodecanese

800

—The adapter invents the alphabet; Homer composes the Iliad and the Odyssey (?) -Pithekoussai colonized by Euboians - T h e Dipylon oinochoe inscription; the Cup of Nestor inscription

700 _ )

Chronological chart 1 1600-700 B.C.

CHRONOLOGICAL CHARTS Atlk

Corinthian

Argiyt

Thtiialun

CyclaMc & Enioam

Boeotian

Laconian

XXI If. Greet

Cretan

E. Grate

870

850

8,0

8«0

ta, MG ( + SubPG skyphoi)

MG? •Jta 7iO 74!

LGlb

7JO

LGtlb

710

Wo

700

690

690 MPCI SubG

670

MPA

S80 SubG

SubG

MPCH

Chronological chart II The Geometric Period according to pottery styles (from Coldstream, GGP, 330)

MAPS

-38*

CARTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MAOISON

Map i Greece and the Aegean coasts

XX111

MAPS

r

1 30*

I

40*

50*

{

—^—v

m

)

-38* i

y^ " ^ — ^

Zill(

Urmia

Tarsus \

ASSYRIA

^^Nineveh jPNimrud Assur\

\

% 34*"

Byblo//

Babylon^ ^ ^ v wBr Samaria

Miles 0

17

I

50 100

40*

CARTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON

i ii The Near East c. 8oo B.C.

50*

XXIV

MAPS

Map in South Italy and Sicily

MAPS

1:5,300,000

Map iv Kirchhoff's colored map, central portion (after Kirchhoff, 1887: end map)

XXV

Foreword Why was the Greek alphabet invented?

In spite of the tremendous achievements of the Western civilization in so many fields of human endeavour, writing has not progressed at all since the Greek period. (I. J. Gelb) 1 quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis multa elementa vides multis communia verbis, cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti. tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo. To be sure everywhere in my verses you see many letters [elementa] common to many words; yet you must agree that these verses and these words are distinct both in meaning [re] and in sound. So much is possible with letters merely by shifting their order. (Lucretius 1.823^7)

It is commonplace to praise the qualities of the Greek alphabet and the literature which the Greek alphabet has served. After all, our writing 2 descends from the Greek, and certainly our literate culture is GrecoRoman. What about the literature that went before, couched in the writings of the immemorially old, splendid civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia? These literate civilizations flourished 2,500 years before Homer and gave much to Hellas in technical and material culture. How much of their literate culture was transferred to Greece? The answer is " little or none." The Greek simply could not read the writings of pre-Greek peoples. Except for the special case of the Israelites, the textual traditions of the ancient East did not survive the Hellenization of civilization.3 Although non-Greeks learned Greek and translated books, such as the Septuagint, out of their native language and script into the 1

Gelb, 1963: 239. 1 By a "writing" I mean "any system of human intercommunication by means of a set of visible marks with a conventional reference" (Bennett, 1963: 99—100: see 'Definitions'). Any one writing can, and usually does, have many "scripts," such as our own capitals, lower case and cursive. * Though orally preserved traditions, especially myths, did pass from East to West, no doubt by means of bilingual raconteurs.

2

W H Y WAS THE GREEK ALPHABET INVENTED?

Greek language and script, or even wrote books in the adopted Greek script and language, no Greek seems ever to have mastered earlier writings.4 The task must have been too great and the rewards invisible. Even the literature of the Israelites made no impression on the GrecoRoman world until a Hellenized Christianity, its texts written in Greek, alerted the West to the existence of the Septuagint, a Greek version of Hebrew scriptures prepared by Jews for Jews who could not read their own language in their own writing. 5 Most pre-Hellenic written literature perished before the new technology of writing, the Greek alphabet. Sometimes the word "alphabet" is used in a rough-and-ready way to mean any signary, as when one speaks of the " Cherokee alphabet," and among Semitic scholars it is common to designate by the word "alphabet" such West Semitic writings as Phoenician or Hebrew (for full discussion, see Appendix i: Gelb's theory of the syllabic nature of West Semitic writing). But in this work by "alphabet" I mean a writing whose graphic elements represent the atoms of spoken language so that, ideally, the approximate sound of the spoken word can be reconstructed solely by means of the sequence of graphic signs. In practice an alphabetic sign will represent a phoneme, one from a set of the smallest units of speech that distinguishes one utterance from another.6 Thus in English the alphabetic sign b stands for / b / , while the sign c stands for / k / or / s / . The alphabet attempts to translate the aural, invisible elements of human speech into graphic, visible signs. The alphabetic signary presents the paradox of having constituent parts which, when combined, represent human speech, while the parts themselves, except for the vowels, are not 4

So named, according to legend, because it was made by seventy rabbis from Judea working in Alexandria independently to produce miraculously identical results. Other translations are the Greek and Latin versions of Mago's Punic text on agriculture (Colum. 1.1.13, Varro, rust. 1.1.8, 1.10; cf. Cic. de or. 2.249); P n ' ' ° °f Byblos (c. A.D. 100) claimed to translate into Greek the Phoenician History of one Sanchuniathon. The Egyptian priest Manetho of Heliopolis, (c. 323-245 B.C.) wrote in Greek an Aigyptiaka, on which is based the modern division of Egyptian chronology into thirtyone dynasties. Babylonian Berossus, priest of Marduk, wrote a Babyloniaka. The Btllum Judaicum of the Pharisee and army commander Josephus (born A.D. 37/8) was translated from Aramaic into Greek, in which form alone it survives. 6 In the entire sweep of pagan Greco-Roman literature there is but a single certain reference to the Septuagint (in a citation of Genesis in the anonymous treatise on style from the first century A.D. irepi uvjmus, On the Sublime, 9.9); by contrast, the Talmud contains over 3,000 borrowings from the Greek language (J. Geiger of Hebrew University has pointed this out to me). • Although a phoneme represents a range of sound subject to further analysis, the speaker of a language will recognize any sound within this range as being "the same thing." Whether the phoneme objectively exists as a separable unit from the continuous flow of speech sounds, i.e. whether or not the atomic model is correct, is important to the difficult problem of the relation between spoken and written language, but not relevant to our inquiry now. Alphabetic writing acts as if the phoneme exists and proceeds accordingly.

W H Y WAS THE GREEK ALPHABET INVENTED?

3

pronounceable. For example, when asked to "pronounce" the alphabetic sign by whose name is " B e , " we syllabize it by saying " b a " or the like; the sign k, named " K a , " we might try to pronounce as " k a " ; and /, named " E l , " we would pronounce as " e l " . The "atomic" character of alphabetic signs is reflected by the Latin word elementa and die Greek word OTOIXETOC, both of which can mean either "elements" or "letters." Alphabetic signs belong to a semiotic system whose genius is to break down speech syllables into their constituent elements so that the graphic elements may be recombined to represent previously unexpected examples of speech. In this, alphabetic writing is different from all earlier writings, which in their phonetic and nonphonetic operations were designed to remind a native speaker of words whose sounds he already knows. Because alphabetic writing analyzes the sounds of human speech, it is potentially useful for recording any language. Phonetic elements of language seem to be limited in number and belong to all mankind, although different human groups make different phonemic distinctions in their speech. The direct descendants of the Greek alphabet have, in fact, spread over the globe, recording many languages. From an historical point of view, "alphabet" and " Greek alphabet" are one and the same. The Greek alphabet was the first writing that informed the reader what the words sounded like, whether or not he knew what the words meant. The word "alphabet" itself is Greek, formed from the Greek names of the first two signs in the series.7 Earlier writings, including such West Semitic writings as Phoenician and Hebrew, were in this sense not alphabets (Appendix i). All later alphabets, the Latin or the Cyrillic or the International Phonetic Alphabet, are modifications of the Greek alphabet, having the same internal structure. Although many have praised alphabetic writing and noted its profound influence on culture, no one has ever inquired systematically into the historical causes that underlay the radical shift from earlier and less efficient writings to alphabetic writing. Such is my purpose in this book. 8 Chapter i, "Review of criticism: What we know about the origin of the Greek alphabet," gives a critical review of the massive literature on the question, summarizes the consensus of scholars, and presents my own evaluations of the complex, sometimes perplexing, evidence. I note how 7

Though, of course, the Greek names are corrupted forms of the Phoenician. The word is first used in the Hellenistic period (cf. GrGr, 141, note 3). But an illiterate man is avaA^apTyros in Nikokhares, an Athenian comic poet of the fourth century B.C. (LSJ s.v.). * For a synopsis of my argument, see Powell, 1990.

4

WHY WAS THE GREEK ALPHABET INVENTED?

scholars have concentrated on where and when the adaptation might have taken place, on the names, sounds, and shapes of the signs, and on early forms and later specializations of the system, while avoiding the question, "Why should the Greek alphabet have been invented at all?" Chapter 2, "Argument from the history of writing: How writing worked before the Greek alphabet," places the Greek alphabet in its context in the history of writing. Only by examining typical specimens of prealphabetic writing can we understand what sort of change from its predecessors the alphabet was. Chapter 3, "Argument from the material remains: Greek inscriptions from the beginning to c. 650 B.C.," reviews the early surviving examples of Greek alphabetic writing. From the scanty remains, we can draw some conclusions about what the alphabet was first used for and about the social environment in which it first appeared. More informative for our purpose than the epigraphic evidence would be a textual tradition that we could trace back to the earliest days of Greek alphabetic writing. Homer's poems offer this possibility, and Chapter 4, " Argument from coincidence: Dating Greece's earliest poet," attempts to place Homer accurately in time. Chapter 5, "Conclusions from probability: How the Iliadand Odyssey were written down," draws together the strands of our inquiry to reach a surprising answer to the question, " What caused the invention of the Greek alphabet? Who did it, and why?"

Review of criticism: What we know about the origin of the Greek alphabet

carrctp o TfocaT| 'EAAaSi as

t u ph

fca.kh

f

M/ -i- >
)

(? x, -r tt»u) > )

o

(«t

i

M u

jj IK pOV

t*r

M *5

ka

i

IJU
3 m5m 14 nun M semk c

d.

c.

*1Y

12

16

Selected Greek shapes from epichoric varieties 8th-;th cent, (all forms-right-to-leit)

9th-8th cent. Phoen. shape

X

t

T T Y u .) I will call o omicron. (For the names of the vowels see W. S. Allen, 1987: 172—3.) The name paO for f is attested only by a statement in Cassiodorus (above, note 13) that Varro had called it such (this depends on a restoration by Ritschl for "va " of the MSS: Noldeke, 1904: 124-5; W. S. Allen, 1987: 48). See also Gordon, 1973: 46, note 67. 13

SINGLE INTRODUCTION BY A SINGLE MAN

II

at a single time. 15 The many minor distinctions in letter form and phonetic value among the local varieties of the earliest surviving Greek inscriptions, the "epichoric varieties" of the Greek alphabet, will not alter this conclusion.16 Other unique, arbitrary, and unrepeatable features of Greek alphabetic writing, best explained by the theory of monogenesis, are: (1) the presence of the letter phei

x ( = Q | unvoiced [s] -> t ( = §) I [ts]a -* ?M ( = M) |[sh] b

->*(=