Initially Greek tribes used Cretan-Mycenaean hieroglyphs what written monuments of the 14th century BC testify to. Classical Greek writing appeared approximately in the 8th century BC. Ancient Greeks took the Phoenician alphabet as its basis, having improved it.
Instruction
1. The Phoenician letter appeared in the 15th century BC, it is one of the first systems of the phonetic letter. Phoenician letter is the cornerstone practically of all modern alphabets. In the Phoenician alphabet there were only letters designating consonants, reading was conducted from right to left.
2. In 9-8 centuries BC the Greeks improved active trade relations with Phoenicians and in the course of mutual cultural exchange adopted at them writing. The first Greek written monuments belong to the 8th century BC - an inscription from Fera, a dipilonsky inscription from Athens. Already in these inscriptions obvious differences from the Phoenician letter are visible - signs which designate not only concordants, but also vowels are used. In the way, the Greek letter became konsonantno-vocalic, this its important difference from all other alphabets of that time at once.
3. Practically right after the emergence the Greek letter was divided into two types - West Greek and east Greek. From the West Greek letter there were a runic German letter and Latin, from east Greek - Cyrillics, the Armenian, Coptic, gothic letter. At the initial stage of development of the Greek writing in the different areas of Greece different options of writing of some letters were used, gradually writing of letters was unified.
4. Initially in the Greek alphabet there were 27 letters, but the alphabet from 24 letters is considered classical. Initially all letters were written in specular reflection, only in the 4th century BC they began to be written in the way habitual to us. Greeks always wrote from left to right.
5. Greeks wrote on clay tablets, metal, a stone. In the 4th century BC in Greece began to use the Egyptian papyrus. In the second century BC began to use parchment, books became simpler to be written and stored.