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Cuneiform [note 1] is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. [4] The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. [5] Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: cuneus) which form their ...
The Greek alphabet was developed during the Iron Age, centuries after the loss of Linear B, the syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek until the Late Bronze Age collapse and Greek Dark Age. This article concentrates on the development of the alphabet before the modern codification of the standard Greek alphabet.
In 1700 Thomas Hyde first called the inscriptions "cuneiform", but deemed that they were no more than decorative friezes. [15] Proper attempts at deciphering Old Persian cuneiform started with faithful copies of cuneiform inscriptions, which first became available in 1711 when duplicates of Darius's inscriptions were published by Jean Chardin ...
The light green shows the countries where the alphabet co-exists with other scripts. Greek is in turn the source of all the modern scripts of Europe. The alphabet of the early western Greek dialects, where the letter eta remained an /h/, gave rise to the Old Italic alphabet which in turn developed into the Old Roman alphabet.
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet , [ 4 ] and is the earliest known alphabetic script to have developed distinct letters for vowels as well as consonants . [ 5 ]
For broader coverage of this topic, see Writing. A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a script, as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing was invented during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each writing system invented without prior knowledge of writing gradually evolved from a system of proto-writing that ...
The letters of the Greek alphabet generally visually correspond to those of the Phoenician alphabet, and both came to be arranged using the same alphabetical order. [58] Those adapting the Phoenician system added three letters to the end of the series, called the "supplementals". Several varieties of the Greek alphabet developed.
The Latin alphabet was derived from Old Italic (originally derived from a form of the Greek alphabet), used for Etruscan and other languages. The origin of the Runic alphabet is disputed: the main theories are that it evolved either from the Latin alphabet itself, some early Old Italic alphabet via the Alpine scripts, or the Greek alphabet ...