Tracking the first two types of reforms will help us to identify when a script is differentiated from another without going into the level of the writing system. This is particularly important when considering the transmission of a script from one writing system to another. This would appear to be the case for the Etruscan abecedaria, which for a century did not undergo any reforms and were thus formally undistinguished from contemporary Greek abecedaria. For this reason, they will be added to the discussion below as they provide an interesting insight for the situation of the Greek scripts.

5 Ed. and trans. by Russel 2001.

6 Wachter 1989, 24 f.; Forthcoming, 26 f.

#### **3.2 Etruscan abecedaria: a case study on borrowing and reforms**

Etruscan abecedaria are especially interesting since they seem to show the different stages of borrowing and appropriation of a foreign writing system, specifically Greek, and thus they may serve as a parallel useful to analyse the borrowing from NWS to Greek and to identify script reforms present in the alphabetic sequence. However, some of the earliest Etruscan abecedaria (7th century BC) show little or no variation when compared to Greek writing. The fact that these documents contain signs that were never used in Etruscan writing, and that its characteristic letter 8 has not yet been included in the alphabetic sequence, shows that these abecedaria do not reflect any reforms to adapt the script to the Etruscan language. The absence of these reforms in the alphabetic sequence is enough reason to raise the debate of whether we should consider these to be still purely Greek abecedaria or if they are already Etruscan. In fact, the most famous Etruscan abecedarium – that found in an ivory model of a writing tablet from Marsiliana d'Albegna (*ET* AV 9.1) – is sometimes described as Greek.

The text in this tablet is considered by many the model for early Etruscan abecedaria, even though one can see that the signs match graphically with Greek epigraphic samples. This has led some scholars, such as Grenier,7 to consider that this is purely a Greek abecedarium: 'L'alphabet au contraire [to the manufacture of the object, which is oriental] est purement grec. […] C'est un alphabet grec parfait qu'il nous faut prendre comme tel.' Jeffery8 prefers to include it in a section of non-Greek inscriptions and Lejeune9 believes that this is the most ancient Etruscan abecedarium. This confusion has been provoked by the shapes of some letters that do not correspond to that seen in Etruscan inscriptions,10 and by the appearance of some dead letters within the abecedarium. Most importantly, the sequence set by the document from Marsiliana is followed by all other Etruscan abecedaria from the 7th century with minor variations where these are present.11

Lejeune was also intrigued by the nature of these abecedaria and whether they should be considered Greek or Etruscan.12 He proposed a solution that tried to combine the differences and similarities between both traditions. He was the one to differentiate two linguistic aspects involved in these documents: formal and functional. From a formal point of view, Lejeune considers that Euboeans and Etruscans share a common abecedarium, as they use the 'même répertoire de

> *Table 3.1: The sequence of the Marsiliana abecedarium.* JFXUTí¢QÑOçõô£ðIz&ÇÛćĀæå

7 Grenier 1924, 13.

8 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 240 f. Followed by West 2015, 62.

9 Lejeune 1983, 10.

10 See Pandolfini and Prosdocimi 1990, 197 ff.

11 Cf. *ET* AT 9.1, Cr 9.1, Fa 9.1, Ve 9.1, Ve 9.2, Ve 9.4 and Vt 9.1.

12 Lejeune 1983.

signes, rangés dans le même ordre'. From a functional point of view, however, they must be Etruscan as these signs are used in a different way in their language. What Lejeune identified as formal vs. practical is what here I have defined as the script vs. the notation system. While no reforms seem to have taken place in the script level – for the letters are the same as we would expect in a Greek abecedarium – the writing system is different since the language system to which the script is applied is different.

Although Lejeune seems very sure of the Euboean model for the Etruscan abecedaria,13 this is not unproblematic, for they bear signs of unclear origin or coming from separate Greek traditions. The Euboean model would account for the fact that |J| renders /kh / instead of /ps/ and the interpretation of |X| – /ks/ in some 'red' scripts14 – as a sibilant in Etruscan writing.15 This could be supported by another 7th-century Etruscan abecedarium (*ET* AT 9.1) in which this sign is substituted by an extra sigma. Moreover, the five-stroke mu M in these abecedaria is also favoured by Euboean sites and their colonies, *e.g.* Eretria, Cumae, Methone, Pithekoussai. Following this theory, it is possible to interpret the closing sequence as the typical red alphabet ending in xi-phi-chi <XFJ>.16

However, treating the abecedarium as purely Euboean leaves the window-shaped sign <ç> without an explanation. Its position in the sequence suggests that it is related to a 'dark blue' xi inherited from NWS samekh, thus clashing with the idea of a 'red' model.17 Unfortunately, this is a dead letter in Etruscan writing, so there is no further information concerning its possible original value.18 Its appearance in other abecedaria does not shed any light on the matter either. Other alleged Greek abecedaria in which this sign occurs are very problematic and in Etruscan it appears either in this position or in the place of heta <h>, probably due to the similarity between their shapes.19 Also the presence of both sigma and san and their use in practical writing for the Etruscan sibilants have been problematic points in the identification of the possible model for Etruscan abecedaria. As will be shown later, however, this should not be an impediment for the Euboean origin since sigma users tend to keep both letters in their alphabetic sequences. This means that san

13 Also supported by Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 80.

14 See the explanation on Kirchhoff's coloured alphabets on p. 2 and Figure 1.1 on p. 3.

15 In modern editions of Etruscan texts this sign is transcribed as a sibilant with the value /s/. In practical writing this graphematic relationship is only seen in Caere and Veii. Cf. Woodhouse 2005; Meiser *et al.* 2014, bd.1, 25 f.

16 This order is seen in a Boeotian abecedarium, cf. §3.3.6, and in other Etruscan abecedaria as well *ET* AV 9.1, Cr 9.1, Ve 9.1 and Ve 9.2. Exceptions are *ET* AT 9.1, where <X> is replaced by <í> and *ET* Ve 9.4 that ends in chi-phi <JF>.

17 Ghinatti (2004b, 45) argues that this would be in fact a 'blue' abecedarium rather than 'red' one.

18 Nevertheless, in modern editions of Etruscan texts this sign is transcribed as a sibilant, cf. Meiser *et al.* 2014, 25 f.

19 See §§3.3.1 and 3.3.2 and *ET* Fa 9.1. Nevertheless, the sign is used in an inscription from Sabinia possibly with the value of a sibilant (Cristofani 1997, 73).

could have been transmitted from one writing system into another even if it was a dead letter in the former.

In any case, two things are evident: the influence from the Greek scripts and the absence of modifications to the model. The presence of several dead letters indicate that no *Reduktionsreform* has happened yet, but there are no traces of additions to the sequence either. We are facing an early stage in which the borrowed script has not been modified and when Etruscans follow it faithfully in practical writing as well, only with minor adaptations to their language: san and sigma are used for different sibilant sounds, |"| represents /k/ rather than /g/ since the latter does not occur in Etruscan, and they use the digraphs <FH> and <HF> for /f/ before |8| is introduced.20 It is not until the 6th century BC that the first reforms happen. By then, the dead letters are no longer included in the abecedaria and the northern and southern scripts are differentiated. An *Additionsreform* happens in the late 6th or early 5th century BC when letter 8 is included in the alphabetic sequence.21 Once the reforms are performed, we can consider these scripts to be fully independent from the Greek ones.

Considering this, we might want to examine what Greek abecedaria can show us in this respect. Through identifying the sequence and the reforms that they have undergone, it should be possible to establish the composition of the Greek scripts and identify where these stand in comparison with other Greek and NEM alphabets.

#### **3.3 Abecedaria for the study of the Greek alphabets**

The material available for the study of Greek alphabetic scripts is scarce and does not come without its problems. Since we are dealing with several scripts, ideally, we would have examples of abecedaria for each one. However, this is not the case and, what is more, it is especially difficult to find complete abecedaria for the earliest stages of Greek alphabetic writing. All the Greek abecedaria dated before the 6th century BC appear on fragmented pottery or are incomplete because their writers preferred to record just the first few letters of the alphabet. This means that we do not have evidence for the complete alphabetic series for at least the first two centuries of Greek alphabetic literacy.

The following pages show several documents available for the reconstruction of the alphabetical sequence of the Greek scripts in the 8th and 7th centuries BC in chronological order. However, some later abecedaria will appear in the discussion for the sake of comparison and to fill in the gaps of earlier material.

20 Wachter 1987, 23; Bagnasco Gianni 1996.

21 For a full description of the reforms in the northern and southern Etruscan alphabets see Pandolfini and Prosdocimi 1990, 11–17.

#### *3.3.1 The Fayum tablets*

Although many researchers have cast doubt on the authenticity of these three tablets because of their uncertain provenance and their acquisition on the black market of antiquities, some still consider the Fayum tablets as valid evidence in the reconstruction of the earliest sequence of the Greek scripts.22 They seem to show multiple abecedaria that run until tau, leading to the conclusion that they should be dated to the 9th century, before other letters were added to the alphabetic sequence.23 Such an early dating is disputed by other scholars, who see later letter shapes and therefore prefer to think that this is a later copy of an early abecedarium.24 Given that there is no archaeological context for these tablets, their dating is still uncertain despite the fact that they have been confirmed to be authentic ancient documents.25 Hence, I will not consider their texts to be early alphabetic sequences and they are discussed here just as a point of comparison with other abecedaria.

Even if we were to consider the tablets to be as early as some scholars argue, there are still problems with their interpretation as a collection of abecedaria. The letters are often misplaced if we consider the 'canonical' order, although the expected sequence does appear in a few instances.26 We might think, then, that the author knew the canonical sequence and that these 'anomalies' could have been done on purpose. If this is the case, then it is difficult to maintain the position that these are true abecedaria. The only alternative interpretation in the scholarship to date, however, is that of Ghinatti, who proposes that these sequences show the rotation of 22 members – thus the absence of any letter after tau – in an association for religious or political events, or else a magical text.27

Whatever the case, the doubts surrounding the nature of this document and its date and the rotating elements make it an unreliable source for the study of the Greek alphabetic sequence. Nevertheless, I will comment briefly on the lines that show the 'canonical' order.

According to the shapes seen in the tablets, the sequence (from right to left) would be as shown in Table 3.2.28 This sequence is almost identical to that seen in the earliest Etruscan abecedaria. Some of the characteristic signs of the Etruscan documents can also be seen here: the appearance of digamma <V>; the five-stroke mu <M>, common in areas of Euboean influence; the window-shaped sign <ç> discussed

22 Heubeck 1986; Woodard 2014.

23 Woodard 2014. Other early dates (8th or 7th centuries BC) are supported by Heubeck 1986 and Ghinatti 2004b, 57.

24 Brixhe (2007b, 31) dates the copy around the 3rd or 4th centuries BC.

25 See the details of its scientific examination in Scott 2014. For scholars who previously argued that this document was a forgery see *SEG* 55.1860; Powell 1991a, 31, n.83; Lazzarini 1998, 61.

26 See Woodard 2014, ch. 4.

27 Ghinatti 2004b, 55. For the Fayum tablets as a magical abecedarium see Heubeck 1986; Woodard 2014. Magical functions are attributed to other abecedaria elsewhere. Cf. Velaza 2003, 954–957; de Hoz 2014, 193 ff.

28 Cf. Heubeck 1986, 15.

*Table 3.2: The alphabetic sequence of the Fayum tablets.* T ì ø Q Ñ ^ O ç Þ ô G ð õ Z h Ç Û ê d Ô æ å

*Figure 3.1: Daphnephoros 60.03. Drawing made after Elvira Astoreca 2020, fig. 3.1.*

in the following section; and the presence of both san <Ñ> and sigma <ï>. The main differences would be the shapes of iota <N> and nu <m>29 and the downward looking lambda <G>, which faces upward <L> in Etruria.

As mentioned before, however, we should not draw any conclusions from this document as long as we are not sure about its date or its nature. Therefore, it will not be taken here as evidence, but as a point of comparison with other abecedaria.

#### *3.3.2 The earliest abecedarium in Eretria?*

Although the following inscription (Figure 3.1) has been treated thus far as an abecedarium, I would argue that this categorisation is highly dubious. The editors of the corpus from the

sanctuary of Apollo Daphnephoros in Eretria have read the text on this 8th-century sherd as:

(<) ]çοπ̣[

This interpretation understands the document as a sinistroverse abecedarium with the letters xi, omicron and pi.30 Nevertheless, this reading entails three assumptions:

The first assumption cannot be proven since the signs, as they appear on the sherd, are symmetrical and do not offer any indication regarding the reading direction. The second assumption cannot be refuted without a proper autopsy of the object. While in the photograph there seems to be no trace of a second stroke due to the damage on the top left, the drawing in the *prima editio* shows a diagonal stroke running from the top of the sign, thus interpreting it as <û>, a pi closer in shape to NWS pe p. 31 However, that stroke could be part of any other letter with a long vertical first stroke

29 Cf. Brixhe 2007b, 29.

30 Kenzelmann Pfyffer *et al.* 2005, 60. Followed by Dubois 2014; Marchand 2014, 68; West 2015, 61; Papadopoulos 2016, 1241; Bourogiannis 2019, 161 f.

31 Kenzelmann Pfyffer *et al.* 2005, 60 no. 3.

and a second diagonal one and no connections in the middle or lower parts of the sign (*e.g.* gamma <û>/<G>, mu <M>, nu <N>). Nevertheless, there is also the possibility that, even if the object is examined again, the damage may not allow for a proper interpretation of the sign.

Most interesting is the appearance of the window-shaped sign |ç|, which has a difficult interpretation. Its reading as xi is probably motivated by its appearance in the position of that letter in the abecedaria from Etruria and in the Fayum tablets. It has been interpreted as a variation of the NWS samekh x with vertical strokes on the sides.32 Nevertheless, this is the first and only evidence of this sign in Euboea33 and, given that it is dubious as an abecedarium, it is difficult to tell to what letter this would correspond. Furthermore, it is also important to bear in mind that this shape renders the value /th / when it appears in Greek writing other than abecedaria.34 As discussed in the previous section, Etruscan does not offer any help in this respect since this sign is not used outside of abecedaria.

A possible interpretation of this sign being an instance of squared theta in this specific inscription is supported by further evidence in the Greek-speaking communities. Another example of square theta appears in the recently found abecedarium from the Barako hill in Attica, where all round letters appear in their squared versions.35 Moreover, even in the corpus of this particular sanctuary, we see a theta that is not perfectly round in Daphnephoros 75.64.

Thus, the interpretation of this text as an abecedarium seems to be done out of a desire to fill in a 'missing link' in the attestations of the alphabetic sequence. Such a reading would make the connection between Euboea and the Etruscan abecedaria, which show <ç> in the position where xi is expected. If this is so, the Euboeans, often thought to be the first Greeks to use an alphabet, would have transmitted this sign to the Etruscans. Moreover, this would be the oldest abecedarium in the area, if not the oldest in Greek epigraphy (if the Fayum tablets are discarded). Nonetheless, for the reasons presented above, I will not consider this document as a valid abecedarium for this study.

#### *3.3.3 The Athenian Agora abecedarium*

A loomweight from the Athenian Agora (*Ath. Ag.* A1) dated to the 8th century BC appears to be inscribed on one of its sides.36 Even though the text of this inscription is not completely clear, it is more likely to be a real abecedarium than the previous inscription. At least alpha and beta are clearly visible in the top right corner and the next sign seems to be a gamma. Apart from these three letters, no relevant information can be drawn from this document.

32 Brixhe 2007b, 30.

33 Dubois 2014.

34 See §5.8.2.

35 Langdon 2005, 176.

36 Brann 1961, R22; Powell 1991a, 154.

Brann refers to this document as an 'abortive' abecedarium, as the rest of the strokes seem to be random instead of continuing the alphabetic sequence.37 Powell also suggests that the writer may only have known the letters up to delta and then tried to imitate the rest of the signs with random strokes.38 Nevertheless, it is difficult to ascertain just from the images whether the reading difficulties are due to an inexperienced hand or to the erosion of the object.39

#### *3.3.4 Two abecedaria from Cumae*

The bottom of an oenochoe from early 7th-century Cumae (*LSAG* 239.02) shows two abecedaria (Table 3.3) and an Etruscan text.40

The abecedarium below, running dextroverse, presents the alphabetic sequence up to zeta. This one is difficult to identify with a specific epichoric alphabet, since most of the signs are widespread throughout most of Greece, but given the status of Cumae as a Euboean colony, it has been suggested that it corresponds to the script of Euboea.41 However, an Etruscan origin has also been argued,42 as both alphabets share many signs. The only letter that could narrow down the possible origin of the script is <H>, only seen as a heta in Sicilian Naxos. The metropolis of both of these colonies is Chalcis, so we could presume that the scripts used in these three places are related.

Above this abecedarium and separated with a horizontal stroke we find another one. The signs in it, however, suggest that one should be careful when trying to match the script with the place where it is found, for it has a Corinthian beta c. Although it has been argued that this text runs from beta to zeta, I think that more probably it was written after the other abecedarium and in a reversed order: from zeta to beta. That way, the writer makes sure that both zetas meet at the same point. Read like that, in a sinistroverse direction, it is possible to explain why digamma and gamma look to the left. Furthermore, this difficult exercise of writing the abecedarium backwards may explain the absence of epsilon from this sequence.

In this abecedarium, the shape of delta is almost identical to that of heta without the middle stroke and gamma looks similar to a tailless rho. These mistakes are probably the result of trying to write the alphabetic sequence backwards together with the difficulty of writing in a second script. This is clearly an exercise of digraphy,43 for

*Table 3.3: Two abecedaria from LSAG 239.02.*

ßãHÛHÇ

#### AB[%EVHÇ

37 Brann 1961, 156.

38 Powell 1991a, 154.

39 Cf. photograph in Brann 1961, pl.23 R22.

40 Powell 1991a, 156; Arena 1994, 113 ff.; Dubois 1995, 36–40.

41 Powell 1991a, 156.

42 West 2015, 61.

43 Luraghi Forthcoming, 44.

there is no apparent reason to think that the two abecedaria were written by different hands. Surely, the closeness of the Corinthian colony of Syracuse is related to this example of digraphy. This means that Greek populations using different scripts very probably kept written communication and to do so they learnt each other's scripts, instead of trying to build a unified one. That knowledge of multiple scripts is translated into inscriptions like this one, which acknowledges and compares the differences of two distinct Greek scripts used for separate dialects of the same language.

#### *3.3.5 Three abecedaria from Hymettos*

Within the corpus of inscriptions from Mt. Hymettos there are three that can be catalogued as abecedaria, all dated in the 7th century BC.44 Hymettos 17.2045 shows two abecedaria in a fragmentary state due to the damage of the object. The visible signs are: <BàòE>. The specific shape of the gamma <à> has been interpreted as Euboean or Boeotian.46 Nevertheless, if we see it as an allograph of |G|, then it would correspond to the grapheme normally used in Attica. The writing is clearly made with difficulty, which led Langdon to think that this was made by a pupil following the first line written by his teacher.47 The other sequence, however, seems to be done with a struggle as well.

Another abecedarium (Hymettos 18.21), although preserved completely, is formed only by the first three letters of the alphabet: <a7à>.48 We find here again the same shape of gamma as in the previous inscription, which, I believe, should be unproblematic. The horizontal alpha seems to have been written like that because of the *ductus* followed, rather than as a conscious choice in contrast with horizontal alpha (cf. §4.1.1).

Finally, another abecedarium on a broken sherd (Hymettos 18.22) shows only three letters due to the damage: <LmN>.49 Unfortunately, as happens with the other abecedaria from Mt. Hymettos, it does not offer much information about the Attic script, except for the upright looking lambda as opposed to the downward gammas both of which are commonly seen in Attic inscriptions. Sadly, no characteristic or innovative elements can be analysed from these fragmentary texts.

#### *3.3.6 The Samian abecedarium*

The closest we can get to a complete abecedarium before the 6th century BC is the one found on a cup from the Samian Heraion (*LSAG* 471.1a, ca. 660).50 Although

44 Langdon 1976, 17 f. Other documents originally interpreted as abecedaria by Langdon cannot be considered as clear examples: Hymettos 18.23–26.

45 Powell 1991a, 153.

46 Langdon 1976, 17 ff.

47 Langdon 1976, 17 ff.

48 Blegen 1934, 15 nos. 10 and 17, fig. 5; Powell 1991a, 152.

49 Powell 1991a, 153.

50 *EG* I 265.7; Powell 1991a, 157.

*Figure 3.2: Samian abecedarium (LSAG 471.1a). Drawing from Elvira Astoreca 2020, fig. 3.2.*

*Table 3.4: The reconstructed sequence of the Samian abecedarium.* (<) ÁBgDÉVÇ[ηθ]IKl[m?νξ]OPq[4?]Ï[T?]UF+JÓ¡?

the damage on the object makes it impossible to know the shape of some signs, the appearance of the so-called 'supplemental letters' makes this abecedarium of particular importance (Figure 3.2, Table 3.4). We could say that this abecedarium shows the sequence that will later become the *koine* Greek alphabet, although with some signs that will be eliminated before that happens: digamma, qoppa and sampi. This Samian abecedarium is of special interest since it shows significant differences with the Semitic scripts and with the other Greek and Etruscan documents analysed here.

The presence of digamma in this abecedarium is worth noting, since in the Eastern Greek variant it is only used as a numeral but considered to be a 'dead letter' in linguistic terms.51 It has been argued that the reason why this dead letter is maintained in the alphabetical sequence is because it was used in the Milesian numeral system52 and this position could be reinforced by the interpretation in *LSAG*, where Jeffery even reads a sampi after the omega. There is, however, one later Samian inscription that uses a digamma as a letter,53 which could mean that at this stage it was not a dead letter after all. Even if it was, we would expect it to be kept in the sequence, not only because of its numeric value, but also because a reform of the script might not take place until some time after the letter has fallen out of use – as seen previously in the Etruscan abecedaria.

Another noteworthy feature of this abecedarium is the sequence pi-qoppa-rhosigma. San is missing between pi and qoppa and it is not present in another position, which implies that it has been removed from the sequence or that it was never adopted for this script, since this letter was never used in Samian writing. Instead, only sigma

51 Powell 1991a, 157.

52 Powell 1991a, 157.

53 Diehl 1964, 537–542, no. 31, fig. 19.

*Figure 3.3: Boeotian kylix with abecedaria (LSAG 95.20). Drawings made by the author after Elvira Astoreca 2020, fig. 3.7.*

appears, between rho and tau. We also find qoppa within this sequence. This is not surprising, as there are other instances of the use of qoppa in the Ionic Dodekapolis.54

The most interesting part of the abecedarium, however, comes after tau. In this last part of the inscription, we see the letters that were added to the ones present in the Semitic script and that characterise this abecedarium and the script behind it. Ypsilon is present in this sequence and followed by phi <F> and chi <+>, the latter in the shape of a cross. A trident-shaped psi <J> and omega <Ó> appear immediately after. This must be one of the earliest attestations of the latter55 and its presence invites us to presume that the sign expected after zeta is not a heta but an eta, *i.e.* with the value /ε:/ in practical writing. Other inscriptions found in the Samian area corroborate this, since they show |h| and |è| for the phoneme /ε:/ and |Ó| for /ɔ:/.56 Finally, a broken sign closes the sequence. Due to the remaining strokes and its position it has been interpreted as sampi. This extra supplemental is not seen in any other Greek abecedarium since this letter was only used among the Ionians and probably related to other Anatolian writing systems such as Phrygian.57

A later abecedarium where the supplemental letters play an important part can be seen in a Boeotian kylix of the 5th century BC (Figure 3.3).58 This vase shows two almost identical abecedaria. The shapes of the letters and their order are exactly the same in both cases, with the only difference that one of them has two more signs than the other. Although these signs are a *hapax* and thus unknown to us, they have been interpreted as psi and omega given their place in the abecedarium and the similarity between the last sign and the letter omega. This is Vottéro's reading following Kalinka's,59 and he adds that this is a consequence of the introduction of the Ionian alphabet in Boeotia.60 Nevertheless, some of the signs in the abecedarium

54 See *LSAG* 342.31 from Miletos and 344.53 from Ephesos.

55 Powell 1991a, 157.

56 See §§4.2.1 and 4.2.2.

57 Cf. Brixhe 1983, 114. The uses and implications of this letter are discussed in §5.5.

58 *LSAG* 95.20; Vottéro 1996.

59 Kalinka 1892. Followed also by West 2015, 63 f.

60 Vottéro 1996, 161.

do not match this explanation. There is no other sign for xi than |+| and so |j| must necessarily be chi, which would mean that this is a red alphabet, exactly like the other abecedarium on the vase. The solution that I propose is that the two unknown signs are filling the space that was left after writing the abecedarium in a *horror vacui* reaction. By comparing the layouts of both abecedaria, it can be seen that the first abecedarium perfectly fits the space available, while the other would leave a blank space, thus ruining the harmony of the decorations. Therefore, the two extra signs are an aesthetic resource to prevent this from happening and cannot be taken as evidence for the expansion of the Ionic script in Boeotia.61 Even though it could be argued that the last sign might be inspired by the shape of omega, this only shows that the painter may have known the letter, rather than its adoption in the local writing and even less its inclusion in abecedaria.

#### *3.3.7 Fragmented abecedarium from Penteskouphia*

Among the ceramic plaques of Proto-Corinthian style found in Penteskouphia there is one with an abecedarium inscribed (*IG* IV.1.333). Although it is not complete due to damage of the object, we can see the running sequence from epsilon to tau without gaps (Table 3.5). Interestingly, this abecedarium starts with <E>, which in Corinthian is used to render /e:/, whereas /e/ is represented with |B| instead.62 Unfortunately, there is no other evidence that would indicate that having <E> before <V> was the norm in Corinthian abecedaria. Even in the Corinthian abecedarium from Cumae seen above no |E| or |B| appears.

Another peculiar characteristic of this abecedarium is the sibilant. Although sigma does not appear, for it is not present in Corinthian writing, san appears in its place, instead of the position seen in Etruscan alphabetic sequences between pi and qoppa.63 This is not a rare phenomenon and can be seen in later abecedaria, like the one in Troilos' aryballos,64 an abecedarium from Metapontion65 and another from Poseidonia.66

It is interesting to compare these examples with the Barako abecedarium (Table 3.6).67 Although this one seems to have been produced in 6th-century Attica,68 it still keeps both letters in the same order seen in Etruscan abecedaria. This implies that there was no reform in Attica that excluded san from its alphabetic sequence, even though it is never used in practical writing. As we would expect in an abecedarium from Attica, xi and psi are absent, as opposed to the additional consonants for the aspirated stops,

61 Vottéro 1996.

62 See §§4.1.2 and 4.2.3.

63 This was also noted by Piérart 1991, 568. Jeffery was wrong to transcribe the san as a sigma (Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 404 pl.20 no. 16) and this mistake is followed by West 2015, 63.

64 Ghinatti 2004b, 38 f. = *LSAG* 440.19, early 6th century BC.

65 Ghinatti 2004b, 49 f. = *LSAG* 261.19, early 5th century BC.

66 Ghinatti 2004b, 51 = *EG* 113.5, early 6th century BC.

67 *SEG* 55.83; Langdon 2005; West 2015, 58.

68 Langdon 2005, 179.

#### *3. Greek alphabetic scripts* 55

*Table 3.5: The sequence of the Penteskouphian abecedarium.* ]EVÇhZïKlÑNOP)Q4ÑT[

*Table 3.6: The sequence of the Barako abecedarium.* öOõÑûðIçhÇĄćdGæØ F+|Tü¢QÑ

which are present following the order chi-phi. The sequence <XF> appears in other documents, such as the Etruscan and Boeotian abecedaria, although in those cases they represent xi-phi. In the Samian abecedarium, where <X> is also chi, the letter appears after phi. A possible explanation could be that Attic and Boeotian abecedaria share the same characteristics on the graphic side, while the values applied to the signs in practical writing have been left in the background. This is another supporting argument for the absence of interference from the language system in the alphabetic sequence.

#### **3.4 The Greek reforms?**

Most of the early Greek abecedaria seen above provide very little information about the alphabetic sequence of each Greek script that we know of, especially when compared to the Etruscan abecedaria which have been preserved in a much better condition. However, from the few letters still visible in the Greek abecedaria and through the comparison with the Etruscan ones, it is possible to reconstruct some of the reforms that the Greek scripts experienced in their earliest stages.

When compared to an idealised NWS model (Table 3.7), the Greek scripts have made the following reduction reforms:

*Samekh*. 69 This letter has been passed on to some of the Greek scripts, while others eliminated it from their sequence. A couple of strokes are seen in the Samian abecedarium right before omicron and it is also seen in Penteskouphia, both with the shape <)>. It appears in a window shape <ç> in the Etruscan abecedaria. In contrast, the Boeotian and Barako abecedaria lack this letter. In the Greek areas where <)> is included in abecedaria, we also see it used in practical writing with the value /ks/, whereas the abecedaria that do not have it are late and from sites that use other graphic solutions for /ks/. For this reason, it is difficult to tell in the latter case whether the reform had already happened in the earliest stages or if it was removed later from those scripts that did not use it.

*Ṣade*. This letter was kept in the form of san <Ñ> in some alphabets, while others preferred to use sigma for the sibilant. In both cases, it is often seen in the alphabetic

69 On the correspondence between NWS sibilants and Greek letters zeta, xi and sigma see §5.5 below.

*Table 3.7: The Northwest Semitic script.*

sequence. Etruscan abecedaria kept it and it was not eliminated in the 6th-century abecedarium from Barako, even though this letter is not used in the Attic script. It also appears in the abecedarium form Penteskouphia, although in the position of sigma. It was removed (if ever adopted) already in the 7th century in Samos, and at least before the 5th in Boeotia*.*

*Šin*. From this Phoenician letter will derive sigma. The latter is the only letter for a sibilant sound present in the Samian and Boeotian abecedaria. It appears with san in the Fayum tablets, the Etruscan abecedaria and that from Barako. From the documents analysed here, it is only eliminated from the abecedarium from Penteskouphia, where it is substituted by san.

Those are the reductions visible in the 7th-century abecedaria. Although in the Boeotian cup we can see that qoppa has also been removed, it is present in all of the early abecedaria and therefore it has not been included within the early reforms. The case of digamma is quite special, because it is kept even in the 6th-century abecedaria in areas where it is becoming or has become a 'dead letter' (7th-century Samos and 6th-century Attica). In some cases, this might be explained through its use as a number in the Milesian numerical system, but wherever these numerals are not used the reason to keep digamma could be the conservatism of the alphabetic sequence.

Furthermore, the inscriptions analysed in this chapter show several additions to the model provided by the Semitic scripts. All of them appear closing the alphabetic sequence.

*Ypsilon*. It is present in all abecedaria and effectively used in all forms of alphabetic Greek writing. Other related writing systems such as Phrygian and Eteocretan show this letter in their practical writing and it was also transmitted to Etruscan. It is probably one of the earliest reforms to the NWS sequence, but we should be cautious about ascribing it to Greek populations. This issue will be explored further in the following chapter.

*Phi*. It is present in all of the abecedaria that run all the way to the supplemental letters. Nonetheless, it is not always placed in the same position. It is seen after ypsilon only in the Samian abecedarium. In the others, it appears after |X| or |+|, which corresponds to xi in the Boeotian abecedaria and chi in Samos and Barako. The Etruscan documents include it after |X|. This seems to be a Greek addition to the sequence, since Phrygian lacks it altogether and it is unlikely that Eteocretan F is related to phi, but rather to qoppa q. 70 Nevertheless, as we shall see in chapter 5, this innovation is not shared by all Greek alphabets.

*Chi*. It appears after phi in the sites where /kh / is represented by |J|, *i.e.* the Boeotian and Etruscan abecedaria. In the Samian sequence it appears after phi with the shape <+>, whereas in the Barako abecedarium <X> is placed between ypsilon and phi. As with phi, chi seems to be a fully Greek addition that spreads around most Hellenic populations. The differences in shape and position, however, seem to point towards separate traditions concerning the letters representing /kh / and their inclusion within the alphabetic sequence.

*Psi*. This addition is only visible in the Samian sequence. In the areas where the other abecedaria come from, practical writing shows no examples of a single grapheme to represent /ps/; instead, we find digraphs, which are not included in the alphabetic sequence. Therefore, this is an addition exclusive to specific Greek populations.

*Omega*. The situation with omega is the same as with psi. Hellenes from other areas did not use this letter and therefore it is only added in the Samian abecedarium. Again, this is an innovation that is not widespread in the Greek territories.

*Sampi*? It is likely that the last sign in the Samian sequence is part of letter sampi. If that is the case, this is the only abecedarium that shows this letter and therefore it is a local addition. It could be inspired by a similar sign used in other Anatolian writing systems.

Even though the evidence is scarce, it clearly shows that, compared to the Etruscan abecedaria, these Greek documents belong to a more advanced stage in the development of the script. They all exhibit reforms that entail independent changes when compared with the NWS sequence. Unfortunately, in many cases it is not possible to verify whether these reforms were first made in a Greek context or not since no abecedaria have been found for other related Mediterranean alphabets like Phrygian or Eteocretan. In some cases, however, it is possible to identify elements that seem to be Greek innovations: phi, chi, psi and omega are only seen in Hellenic contexts until some of them are transferred into Etruscan writing.

These abecedaria are also evidence for the diverse repertoires seen across the Greek territories. In each of these sequences different reforms can be identified,

70 This is discussed further in §<IP_ADDRESS>.

which make the scripts distinct from each other already at this early date. Moreover, these changes seem to happen at different times depending on the area *e.g.*, while the 6th-century abecedarium from Barako (Attica) keeps sigma and the 'dead' san, the Samian 7th-century sequence has already removed the latter, while adding other signs not seen in the Attic alphabet. This means that each region will have a particular set of graphemes available for them to use in practical writing, which will translate into individual graphic solutions, graphematic relationships and orthographic traits. All these will be explored in the following chapters.

### Chapter 4

### Vocalic notation in the epichoric alphabets

The assessment of the vocalic notation in the Greek alphabets is of special importance since it is the main difference between the NWS abjads and those writing systems that are arising in the Mediterranean for non-Semitic languages around the 8th and 7th centuries BC. As mentioned earlier, Greeks are often credited with the invention of vocalic notation and thus with the creation of a new typology of writing system, the alphabet. Let us consider first whether this is a valid claim in grapholinguistic terms.

As seen in the previous chapter, the changes seen at the level of the script when comparing Greek abecedaria to the NWS sequence included just a few *Additionsreformen* of which only one, ypsilon, is present in all scripts to represent a vocalic sound, and another, omega, is only seen in one script. This means that most of the vowel signs are created through changes at the graphematic level – or *Funktionsreformen* in Wachter's words – that implied the application of a vocalic sound instead of a consonantal one for some of these signs; not to mention that some of these were already used with a vocalic value in NWS writing systems.1 So are these graphematic reforms and the new systematic use of vowel notation enough to talk about a new typology of writing system?

Gelb and Powell argued that NWS writing – though they specifically mention Phoenician – should be envisioned as a syllabic system where signs represent CV syllables without specifying the vowel.2 However, the use of some consonantal signs to specify vowels in some contexts suggests that this is not so and that graphemes in NWS writing render phonemes,3 as they do in Greek alphabets. A very different situation is seen in the case of the adaptation of the Phoenician script by Iberian populations, who did assign syllabic values to some of the Phoenician consonantal

1 NB Aramaic ML.

2 Gelb 1969, 220 ff.; Powell 1991a, 238–245. This responds to an evolutionary conception of the development of writing systems, where logographic systems would be the most primitive, giving way to syllabaries which would finally derive in alphabets, cf. discussion in Boyes and Steele 2019, 3 ff.

3 See discussion in Gnanadesikan 2017, who uses the term 'segment' instead of 'phoneme'.

signs, thus creating a semi-syllabary.4 As opposed to this, in the case of the Greek alphabets we cannot really argue for a system typologically different to NWS writing, for the only changes are the specific phonemic values applied to the signs and the use of a full vocalic notation. Therefore, the fact that the so-called 'abjads' do not write – or write few – vowels is a matter of a more obscure orthography than that of alphabets with full vocalic notation but not a deeper typological change.

Still, we should consider whether the systematic notation of the vowels – in contrast with ML, which only appears in specific contexts – was an innovation introduced by Greeks or not. Many have argued that this is so and that the similarities in the letters for the vowels across epichoric alphabets are so significant that these must have a common origin. Furthermore, they passed on this vocalic notation to other populations around them, like Phrygians, Eteocretans and Etruscans. Recent epigraphic discoveries, however, suggest that the same letters used for vocalic notation in these alphabets already existed before the earliest visible samples of Greek writing. This is the case of the inscribed flask from Osteria dell'Osa and the re-dated palaeo-Phrygian texts from Gordion.

In 1991, a new inscription dated ca. 775 was found in the necropolis of Osteria dell'Osa.5 It appeared on a flask that was left as a votive in the grave of a cremated woman. The origin of the flask is not completely clear since there are no parallels for its shape, but it is most probably a local production even though the woman buried here is thought to be a foreigner.6 The text is often read as <ΕΥΛΙΝ> and connected with the Greek word εὔλινος.7 Looking at the photographs and drawings, however, I do not agree with this interpretation, but would rather read <EFIN> or <EKIN>, if we are to find the correspondence with Greek letters.8 Still, there is nothing to suggest that we should try to link the text to the Greek language. The inscription looks as if it was written before firing the clay and thus, if we believe the object to be of local production, then the inscription must be as well. Whether the text is in a local Italic language or in whatever language this 'foreign lady' spoke is unknown to us. What cannot be contested is that, if we compare the text with the Greek vocalic letters, epsilon and straight iota are already present in this inscription. This might be evidence against the long-held assumption that the alphabet, and therefore vowel letters, arrived in the Italic peninsula through the Greeks and then the Etruscans. On the contrary, this text

4 Ruiz Darasse 2019, 200–3.

5 *Prima editio* Bietti Sestieri *et al.* 1991, 83–88; further commentaries can be found in Bietti Sestieri 1992; Ridgway 1996.

6 About the typology and possible origin of the flask see Ridgway 1996. He also mentions that the deposit looks unusual when compared to the local burials. He proposes that the woman buried here might be a foreigner and recalls how Euboeans deceased at Pithekoussai were also cremated (Ridgway 1996, 90–92). 7 Bietti Sestieri *et al.* 1991, 84; Ridgway 1996, 92 ff.

8 Photographs and drawings of the inscription can be found in: Bietti Sestieri *et al.* 1991, 84–85, fig. 6a–d; Bietti Sestieri 1992, fig. 3a.270; Ridgway 1996, 88, fig. 1.1.

*Figure 4.1: Triangle of the vowels discussed in this chapter.*

shows that these are already in use at least one quarter of a century before the earliest Greek inscriptions.

In Anatolia, with the new chronology of the Cimmerian invasion at the city of Gordion, those inscriptions contextualised immediately after the destruction layer (G104, 237 and 249) are now dated in the early 8th century BC,9 as is the inscription from Osteria dell'Osa. Together they provide early evidence for the vowels A, E, I and O. It is noteworthy that both texts show straight iota, as some of the Greek alphabets that we will analyse below (see §4.1.3). Other texts that are contemporaneous with the earliest Greek inscriptions (G105–109) show the four vowels mentioned above and also U. 10

These inscriptions call for caution when considering what innovations are undoubtedly Greek. The present chapter will reassess this by analysing the graphematic relationships seen for the Greek vowels in the earliest stages of the different epichoric alphabets. These will be laid out in a series of tables heading each section, where all the representations identified for a given value are shown with the code assigned to them in the database and ordered from most to least common. These also show information concerning the number of inscriptions and sites where the sign is attested with the value in question.11 In this way, it will be possible to analyse and identify different traditions and reforms in the vocalic notation of these alphabets.

9 Inscriptions can be found in Brixhe and Lejeune 1984; an explanation of the chronology is in Brixhe 2002, 26.

10 Brixhe and Lejeune 1984; Brixhe 2002, 26.

11 Signs that appear facing opposite the reading direction of the text or upside-down are recorded with an asterisk (\*); here they appear in separate columns to show which signs also have orientation flexibility (Database last checked in July 2020).

Moreover, these will be compared to other tendencies seen across the Mediterranean through the comparison with NWS, palaeo-Phrygian and Eteocretan, thus considering where the epichoric alphabets stand in the broader picture of alphabetic writing in the Mediterranean.

#### **4.1 Short vowels**

All short vocalic phonemes – /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/ or /y/ (Figure 4.1) – are effectively represented and distinguished in the Greek alphabets. They all take distinct graphemes that differentiate them from the rest of the short vowels of a different quality, although as mentioned in §2.2, at least some of these graphemes render long vowels as well. These long vowels that never had a graphic distinction from their short counterparts are considered in this section as well.

#### *4.1.1 /a/ and /a:/*

The notation of /a/ in the Greek alphabets is one of the most stable and widespread graphematic relationships (Figure 4.1). Its most popular sign |A| – with its allomorphs <Á>, <á>, <À> – is seen across all scripts and is known as the letter alpha. This stability in the graphematic relationship |A|-/a/ seen in the Greek alphabets has been the strongest argument for the monogenesis of the Greek scripts. This argument rests on the fact that the Semitic consonantal value assigned to 'aleph A is not far from the vocalic one used systematically in other Mediterranean alphabets. Jeffery suggests that perhaps the glottal stop sound could be interpreted as /a/ by Greek speakers and hence the vocalic value that will spread across alphabets.12

The only variations to this grapheme-phoneme relationship are some isolated cases where the orientation of the sign changes, where perhaps |a| could be interpreted also as another allograph of alpha. Nevertheless, here it appears as a distinct sign so that it can be accounted for since it has been used as an argument for the antiquity and closer relationship of certain Greek inscriptions with Semitic writing. Even so, it is facing the opposite direction if we compare to the Semitic A. 13 In fact, this is a very marginal grapheme in Greek epigraphy. It is only seen in the Dipylon Oinochoe (*LSAG* 76.01, ca. 725) <@aNTONaTalOtaTa2aÏÇÈÏ> παντōν αταλōτατα παιζε̄ι, in Hymettos 18.2114 and in a sherd from Pithekoussai (*EG* 225.5, 8th century) <@a>.

There is also one example where alpha is inverted pointing downwards |Ä|. This happens in *LSAG* 88.22, an aryballos of unknown origin dated ca. 650: <ÄgÄíILEVO> Αγασιλε̄ϝο.15 Finally, the use of a rhomboid shape |Ò| as /a/ in one of the abecedaria

12 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 22.

13 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 23; Guarducci 1995, 89. It is also worth noting that there is an example of upright 'aleph in a Proto-Canaanite inscription from Sechem (Naveh 1997, 26, fig. 18). 14 Abecedarium discussed in §3.3.5.

15 Euboean sites have been suggested as possible origins. Jeffery and Johnston (1990, 88) believe it is Eretrian, while Lejeune (1945, 103) acknowledges the Boeotian making of the object – copying the Proto-

*Table 4.1: Representations of /a/, /a:/.*

from Hymettos (17.20), seems to be a mistake from a non-experienced hand, given that the rest of the letters are also written with difficulty.

All of these leave us with quite a unified picture for the phoneme /a/ that uses mostly the grapheme |A|, attested in almost all Greek-speaking communities, with just a few exceptions. Moreover, this stability continues later in time.16 Therefore, we might conclude that the different variations of the signs for /a/ are a matter of palaeography and that the basic shape – an angle with a line crossing it in the middle – is shared not only between Greek alphabets, but also other related alphabets, *e.g.* Phrygian and Eteocretan.

#### *4.1.2 /e/*

The most extensive grapheme for /e/ is |E|, with its allomorphs <é>, <É> and <È>. Again, these come from a Semitic consonant, he h, that lost its consonantal value when transmitted to other Mediterranean alphabets. However, there are two cases of sign choices specific to certain scripts: Corinthian B and Sikyonian e (Table 4.2).

In the sites in the area of Corinthia and the Corinthian colony of Corfu, a completely different grapheme |B|, and its allograph <7> render /e/. While this grapheme is normally associated with /b/ in other alphabets, in the Corinthian settlements another sign is used for that sound |c|. Although |E| is also used within this alphabet, in fact it renders the long vowel /e:/ instead. It is not easy to reconstruct how these signs of the Corinthian script came to have such different values to those seen in other parts of Greece. A possibility is that Corinthian beta was created first, allowing |B| to be available for another value. In fact, if we look back at the Corinthian abecedaria shown in §§3.3.4 and 3.3.7, we can see that <c> appears in the second position, where we expect the sign for /b/, whereas <E> stands before digamma. Thus, Jeffery interprets that |B| must have been added to the end of the Corinthian alphabetical sequence with the other additional letters.17 Unfortunately, we have no evidence of what the sequence would have looked like after tau and it is not possible to corroborate that. However, this suggests that while |c| and |E| are part of the original Corinthian script, |B| is part of an *Additionsreform*. It was probably during that reform that the vocalic

Corinthian style – although the dialect and script seem from Chalkis to him.

16 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 23.

17 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 116 f.

*Table 4.2: Representations of /e/.*

values /e/ and /e:/ were assigned to |B| and |E| respectively, even though they were conscious of the consonantal value |B| in other alphabets.18

The shape |e| with the value /e/ appears in an inscription found in Delphi attributed to a Sikyonian (*LSAG* 143.2, 7th century?) following the reading <ÑeqUVONIIOÑ> Σεϙυϝονιιος. This graphematic relationship seems to be specific to this site and was in use until the second quarter of the 5th century.19 There are two other instances of this sign, but of unclear value. *LSAG* 143.1 from Sikyon (ca. 650–640?) is too fragmented to assess clearly the value of the sign. The same shape is found in a 7th-century law from Dreros, *LSAG* 315.1a-h, where it seems to be some sort of dividing sign that marks the end of a paragraph,20 and therefore not related to the Sikyonian letter. No other Greek or related alphabets present this graphematic relationship and thus its origin is obscure. Sikyonians probably created this original sign after trying to find a grapheme for /e/, just as the Corinthians did. According to Jeffery, it might be the result of modifying Corinthian |B| to avoid confusion between signs for /b/ and /e/, since Sikyonians used the former shape for the consonant, whereas |E| renders /e:/ following the Corinthian fashion.21

18 This can be seen in the double abecedarium from Cumae discussed in chapter 3. Cf. Luraghi 2010, 74 f., who also points out that the palaeographic development of Corinthian |B| is related to that of beta in other alphabets; Jeffery and Johnston (1990, 114 f.) believe that the Corinthian grapheme is derived from |h|, and so do Guarducci (1995, 171) and Woodard (2019, 102). Kretschmer (1894, 34) thinks it is derived from Phoenician H.

19 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 138; Guarducci 1995, 335.

20 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 308; Steele 2019a, 138.

21 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 138; Guarducci 1995, 335; Luraghi 2010, 84.

22 Blümel 1982, §27. This site in the island of Limnos is compatible with Larissa in terms of dialect.

23 Blümel 1982, §27; Brixhe 1991, 319. Cf. the form Αθαναιαι elsewhere.

The confusion of <h> and <è> for /e/ seems to be part of a common scribal mistake in the Cycladic area, especially in the 6th and 5th centuries. This mistake was probably triggered by the dialectal features of these islands that may be shifting the pronunciation of their short and long vowels.24

In summary, it seems that different areas are experimenting with the notation of /e/, even though there is a widespread common grapheme |E|. These variations are accomplished either by using a completely different grapheme, such as |B| or |e|, or by using signs associated with /ɛ:/. While the latter might be done out of confusion because of phonological features in specific dialects, the former seem to be the result of a conscious choice of graphemes after an *Additionsreform*. This graphemic choice is, therefore, restricted to the area surrounding Corinth. Elsewhere, the graphematic relationship is stable, including the alphabets for Phrygian, Eteocretan, the inscription from Osteria dell'Osa and the later Italic scripts.

#### *4.1.3 /i/ and /i:/*

The case of the notation of /i/ is especially important, for it suggests the existence of two separated traditions in the writing of this specific sound; while some sites use |I| – also referred to as straight iota – others show several zig-zag-shaped signs, the so-called crooked iotas (Table 4.3). Most importantly, these two traditions are also seen in related writing systems. Phrygian, for example, uses |I| for /i/, as do peoples in the Italic peninsula from the times of the inscription from Osteria dell'Osa and also later in the Etruscan alphabet. On the other hand, Eteocretan has no such grapheme and, therefore, |Í| has been interpreted as its vowel /i/ following the tendency of their Cretan Greek neighbours.

Within the Greek alphabets, each of them follows one of the two traditions; there are no attestations of both in the same site (Figure 4.2). Only Kommos, in Crete, seems to be an anomaly, since the whole island uses crooked iotas only – even for Eteocretan – whereas straight iota happens repeatedly in this settlement. But this is not the only element of the inscriptions from Kommos that does not match the rest of the Cretan alphabets. In fact, this site offers a special corpus of inscriptions that seem to show multiple origins from within the island and across the Aegean, probably due to the commercial activity of the site.25 For some of them a Euboean origin has

*Table 4.3: Representations of /i/ and /i:/.*

24 Cf. Gomis García 2018, 75 and 79.

25 See discussion in Bourogiannis 2019, 155–157; Steele 2019a, 140–142. About the commercial nature of the site see Muñoz Sogas 2017.

*Figure 4.2: Geographical distribution of crooked and straight iotas.*

been put forward,26 supported by the presence of the five-stroke mu |M| and |V| for /w/. These traits, however, are found in other alphabets as well – most notably in Cretan – and are not conclusive. On the other hand, the presence of |h| for /ɛ:/ and downward lambda G may point towards Cretan alphabets. Nonetheless, there are other signs of uncertain value that are completely foreign to the island, such as |X|, |F| and |J|. All of these elements may be explained better through a connection with Asia Minor, or at least a combination of inscriptions from Cretans, eastern Ionians and maybe Euboeans as well.

A zig-zag sign <y> with uncertain value appears in an inscription from Smyrna (Smyrna 40.2, 8th century?), where straight iotas are used systematically. However, the reading of the sign in this inscription as sigma seems implausible. The text <Emy>, may be interpreted as either ]ε̣μς. or ]ε̣μι.27 However, the combination μσ within a word or in a word boundary seems unlikely and it could not be read in the opposite direction, since |E| never appears reversed. So the reading ]ε̣μι. is preferred if this is to be Greek. Therefore, it should be either an import from elsewhere in Greece – Thera and Gortyn are places where this kind of mu and iota are seen in early inscriptions – or an early Lydian inscription, as suggested by Jeffery.28

Even without these exceptions, there seems to be no straightforward geographical distribution of the two traditions at first sight (Figure 4.2), although eastern sites do seem to prefer straight iota. If compared to the distribution of the Greek dialects,

26 Csapo *et al.* 2000.

27 Jeffery 1964, 40.

28 Jeffery 1964, 40.

*Table 4.4: Representations of /i/ and /i:/ (except |*I*|) according to site.*

the correspondence is not perfect either. Sites where Doric dialects are spoken tend to have crooked iotas, but this is not so everywhere, *e.g.* straight iota is present in Argolis, Lakonia and Rhodes. Nevertheless, no Ionian settlement uses a crooked iota. This suggests that there could have been an initial dialectal distribution, where Ionians – in a closer geographical connection to the Phrygians and the Italics – used straight iota in opposition to the Dorians, who preferred the crooked signs for /i/, like the Eteocretans. The Italic colonies also respect these dialectal tendencies, as seen in the use of crooked iotas in Achaean colonies, but straight iotas in the Euboean and Megarian ones. Nevertheless, the Dorians living in neighbouring areas or in close connection with Ionians, may have taken writing from them and so adopted straight iotas instead.

There are also some interesting issues concerning the graphic features of this letter. As seen in Table 4.3, wherever straight iota is used it is always the same grapheme, which even lacks allographic variations. The sites where crooked iota is used, however, show a broad sign choice, each with a set of allomorphic writings. Moreover, these can appear reversed in comparison to the reading direction of the text and take many shapes even within the same site. It is especially remarkable that in the 16 inscriptions from Thera, eight variants for /i/ have been found (Table 4.4). This instability also happens in the sites where these shapes are used for /s/.29 According to Jeffery this might be so because the number of strokes for this sign was not fixed,30 but neither is its orientation.

While the crooked iotas are thought to be signs derived from a cursive version of Semitic yodh I, 31 the origin of straight iota is unclear. It is believed that this was an innovation made by populations using sigma,32 since all the shapes used for crooked iota may have the value /s/ in other alphabets.33 Therefore, this new simplified sign

29 See §5.5.

30 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 29 and 34.

31 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 29.

32 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 30; Guarducci 1995, 95.

33 It could be that these two letters, crooked iota and sigma, at some point started to develop their shapes

avoids the confusion between the two letters. Even if that was the initial idea behind the creation of this grapheme, the evidence seems to suggest that this innovation might not be Greek.

As already mentioned, straight iotas are seen in the early 8th century BC in the Italic peninsula and Phrygia before visible writing appears in Greece. It is still unclear where or how this letter originated, but a palaeographic variant of Semitic yodh has been put forward as a possible model for the straight iota.34 On the other hand, Brixhe argues that the straight iota might have been a Phrygian creation since writers of this language needed a sign not only for /j/, but also for the vowel /i/. So while they kept the crooked shape for the consonant, a new sign was devised for the vowel.35 Adiego, however, rejects this theory alleging that the Phrygian yod is only seen from the 6th century onwards and that in earlier inscriptions straight iota covers the sound /j/ as well.36 In Greek, this sound is almost completely lost, only identifiable as a glide, as in the inscription *LSAG* 143.2, <ÑeqUVONIIOÑ> ΣεϙυFονιιος, where the second iota represents [i ̯].37

However, there must have been some alphabet that, at some stage, was able to differentiate both crooked iota and sigma, as we see these two letters in the Dipylon Oinochoe.38 To do this, a distinct shape of sigma |ý|, not seen elsewhere, is used to distinguish /s/ from |Ï|-/i/. Unfortunately, no other Greek alphabet has these two letters in its repertoire and so its origin cannot be completely ascertained.39 In the rest of the Greek alphabets, crooked iota is never seen with sigma, although straight iota might appear with san.40

However the two variants may have originated, the fact is that, by the time we find visible writing in Greece, two well established traditions are set in place for the notation of /i/. While straight iota is systematically used in Aeolic and Ionian sites, crooked iotas are preferred in Doric settlements with a few exceptions. These two traditions are being transmitted across alphabets, not only for the Greek language, but for others as well. In this respect, it is very different to the situation analysed for /e/, in which some areas made conscious graphemic choices that

in parallel, as Luraghi proposed for beta and 'Corinthian epsilon' (Luraghi 2010, 74).

34 Isserlin 1991, 288.

35 Brixhe 1991, 352 ff.; 2007a, 280 f.

36 Adiego 2018, 149.

37 Further examples of iota as a glide can be found in Woodard 2019, 94.

38 NB that this inscription is later than that of Osteria dell'Osa (Johnston 2003, 263) and the Phrygian inscriptions from Gordion (Brixhe 2007a, 280).

39 Apart from crooked iota, <l> for /l/ suggests a non-Athenian hand, as Jeffery maintains (Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 65); contra Wachter 1989, 23. However, her theory of a writer from Posideion – *i.e.* Al-Mina – (Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 16) is unverifiable, for the script used there is completely unknown to us.

40 This happens in *LSAG* 143.2 mentioned above; in Argos (*LSAG* 168.3 and 168.4, both 7th century) <PÉRIKA''ÉÑ> περικαλλε̄ς <ÉDÉÑÉPOIÉhOA4gÉIO> ]με̄δε̄ς εποιε *h*ο αργειο[ς (my own reading based on the drawings from Homolle 1909, 8–9, figs. 8 and 9); Megara Hyblaea (*LSAG* 459.24a, 7th century) <EROIÑIZEO> *h*ε̄ρōισι θεο[ις; and in one of inscription of unknown origin found in the Argive Heraion (*LSAG* 150.11, first quarter of the 7th century) <+OÑEEmI> χωση εμι?.

distinguished them from neighbouring alphabets. In contrast, iota is most likely adopted either straight or crooked by each alphabet, without performing a later graphematic reform.

#### *4.1.4 /o/*

In general, |O| as /o/ is a stable grapheme-phoneme relationship, with very few exceptions (Table 4.5). Rhomboid omicron can be interpreted as an allomorph of the same grapheme. Dotted and not dotted could probably be considered variations on the same sign in some places, while in Thera the central dot does represent a phonemic distinction.43 The only place that seems to show a real deviation from |O|- /o/ is Thasos, where |Ó| renders /o/ and /ɔ:/, while |O| is used for /o:/, contrary to the tendency seen in the rest of Greek populations.44

*Table 4.5: Representations of /o/.*

#### *4.1.5 /u/, /u:/ and /y/, /y:/*

As mentioned in the previous chapter, ypsilon should be considered an *Additionsreform*. Even if the shape can be related to Semitic waw W, it is included at the end as an extra to the NWS alphabetic sequence. Nonetheless, this is one of the most stable letters across Greek alphabets. The choice of signs for its representation

41 There is only one exception, see n. 83 below.

42 The inscriptions that show this sign are Hymettos 28.79, *LSAG* 131.5 and 198.3, all dated around the 7th century.

43 See §4.2.2

44 This is expanded in §§4.2.2 and 4.2.4. This phenomenon is also attested in later inscriptions from Paros, its metropolis, cf. Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 294; Guarducci 1995, 158–164.

*Table 4.6: Representations of /u/, /u:/ or /y/, /y:/.*

is impressively low (Table 4.6): only |U|, with its allomorphs <Ú>, <ú> and |u|. Thus, the two possible shapes are quite similar in graphic terms: they both show an angle looking upwards, either with or without an additional stroke running downwards. Moreover, it is quite common to have the two signs in the same site, which suggests that they are probably seen as optional versions of the same letter. This stability continues later in time as well.45

The phonetic values behind this letter are more complicated to interpret. The signs |U| and |u| were used for both /u/ and /u:/ and in the case of dialects that experienced the shift /u/ > /y/,46 these render /y/ and /y:/. This phonetic difference, therefore, does not seem to affect their representation and so we can conclude that this is a very stable letter; it is seen as |U| everywhere in the Greek-speaking world for both /u/ and /y/. Moreover, this graphematic relationship |U|-/u/ is seen as well across other writing systems, for it is present in Phrygian and supposed for Eteocretan as well.

The wide spread of this letter makes it difficult to assess its possible provenance. In NEM alphabets, it appears in early palaeo-Phrygian inscriptions and possibly also in the Osteria dell'Osa inscription.47 If we suppose that ypsilon and digamma are doublets from Semitic waw, then its origin might be already in the use of the latter as ML.48 However, it is unclear where or when the division into two distinct letters would have taken place.

#### **4.2 Long vowels**

Although this section is entitled 'long vowels', the signs discussed here are not meant to distinguish these vowels from others because of their length, but out of a divergence in their sound qualities. In fact, all the writing systems that recorded the Greek language have shown that quantity ambiguity was never problematic in Greek writing. This applies to both the syllabic writing systems, like Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries, and to the Greek alphabets as well. In the case of

45 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 35.

46 This happened with Attic-Ionic dialects, except for Euboea, cf. Bartoněk 1966, 110–120; Threatte 1980, 23 and 261; Allen 1987, 66 ff.; del Barrio Vega 1990. For a new interpretation of the process see Méndez Dosuna Forthcoming, where he suggests that the fronting /u/>/y/ is a feature of Proto-Greek and that a secondary backing /y/>/u/ took place in several ancient dialects.

47 I have rejected such a reading at the beginning of this chapter.

48 Cf. Rosén 1984, 227; Röllig 1998, 366; Woodard 2019, 94 and 96.

the latter, this ambiguity can be seen in the vowels that never had short-long graphic distinction and in the alphabets that did not have specific graphemes for any long vowel.

The three vowels that never had a graphic distinction for their long counterpart are /a/-/a:/, /i/-/i:/ and /u/-/u:/ or /y/-/y:/. Therefore, all the graphic considerations that have been mentioned above apply to both short and long vowels in these cases. In what remains of this section, however, I will consider the notation of the following long vowels: /ɛ:/ (or /æ:/ in some dialects), /e:/, /ɔ:/ and /o:/.49 These vowels were chosen because they do not show consistent graphic solutions across the Greek alphabets and I will analyse here those seen for each of these long vowels. As will be shown in the following sections, the notation of these sounds is of special importance since they constitute innovations seen in Greek writing only; other neighbouring writing systems do not use distinct letters for long vowels.50 Furthermore, it is specific to certain dialects and sites only and does not apply to all Greek alphabets or long vowels. Therefore, this will be a distinguishing feature that differentiates the vocalic notation systems of the Greek alphabets.

Tracing the representation of long-closed vowels /e:/ and /o:/ is of special interest here, since works like Jeffery's and Guarducci's do not offer exhaustive information concerning the issue. This is so because they take the *koine* Ionic alphabet as a model from which to compare the others. As this alphabet does not have a distinctive grapheme for the long-closed vowels, but uses the digraphs <ει> and <ου> instead, these are left out from the palaeographic tables. Nevertheless, these phonemes are present in many Greek dialects and their forms of representation bring interesting insights into the graphic solutions and graphematic relationships found across the Greek alphabets, as well as the dating of the phonological processes that produced them.51

#### *4.2.1 /ɛ:/ and /æ:/*

The most common tendency is not having a graphic distinction between /e/ and /ɛ:/. In total, 24 sites show no distinction compared to 20 that use specific graphemes for /ɛ:/ (Table 4.7). Two different graphemes are seen in the sites that do not have a graphic distinction: |E| or |B|. In all cases, these are also the graphemes used for /e/. In the areas that have a distinguishing sign for this phoneme, |h| is by far the most popular, although we also find |è|.

It is clear and evident from Figure 4.3 that around the 8th and 7th centuries BC, distinct graphemes for /ɛ:/ can only be found in the islands of the Aegean and Asia Minor. There are some sites that may show some inconsistencies in this

49 See Figure 4.1.

50 Eteocretan shows |h| for /e:/ only in a late text (PRA3) from the 3rd century BC (Duhoux 1982, 75–79 and 166 f.), probably out of influence from the Cretan or even the *koine* alphabet.

51 Only Cyrenaean and Central Cretan lack long-closed vowels in all contexts, cf. Bartoněk 1966, 73 f.

*Table 4.7: Representations of /ɛ:/.*

*Figure 4.3: Geographical distribution of the graphic solutions for /ɛ:/.*

respect, since their texts have both |E| and |h| in contexts where a long vowel is expected. In Aigiale (Amorgos)52 and Naxos53 the inscriptions show examples of the distinction between primary or inherited /ɛ:/-|E| and a secondary long vowel produced by the closing of inherited and CL1 /a:/,54 which had a different pronunciation, /æ:/, and was represented by the grapheme |h|. Therefore, what seemed an inconsistency in the database because of the formatting, is in fact a graphematic relationship that is specific to these dialects, where two different sounds are distinguished graphically.

This phenomenon is attested in Nikandre's inscription (*LSAG* 303.2, third quarter of the 7th century). In this text, both <E> and <h> appear in contexts where a long vowel is expected:

52 *LSAG* 304.15, first half of the 7th century: <%hI%ámANI […] 2ATER> Δηιδαμανι […] πατε̄ρ.

53 *LSAG* 303.2, 304.3, 304.8, all dated in the second half of the 7th century: <kAíIGNÈTh> κασιγνε̄τη, <ÉUZUKARTIdhí.mA.NÉZÉkÉ> Ευθυκαρτιδης | μ'α|νεθε̄κε, <@ÉNTÉQONTA> πεντε̄ϙοντα.

54 Bechtel 1924, §6; Buck 1955, §8; /ǟ/ Lejeune 1949, 7–9 and 1972, 235; /œ:/ Ruijgh 1997, 570 f.; /æ:/ Thompson 2006, 89 f.

#### ➜55

 <NIKáN%4hmANÈZÈKÈNhKhCOlOIIOXEAI4hIQO4hdÉINO dIKhOIONAHìIOIéHìOXOíAlhON%ÈINOméNÈOídÈKAîIGNÈTh fh4AhïOdAlOXOím>

Νικανδρη μ' ανεθε̄κεν *h*(ε)κηβολōι ιοχεαιρηι ϙōρη Δεινο|δικηο τō Να*h*σιō ε*h*σοχος αλ(λ)ηōν Δεινομενεος δε κασιγνε̄τη | Φ*h*ρα*h*σō δ' αλοχος μ[ην?]

In this text, |E| is used in <ANEZÈkÈN> ανεθε̄κεν for /e/ and inherited /ɛ:/ from PIE \*eh1 . 56 It is also present in <kAíIGNÈTh> κασιγνε̄τη, where the last vowel is an example of /æ:/ from proto-Greek /a:/ written <h>, as in <NIKANd4h> Νικάνδρη57 and <hKhCOlOI> *h*(ε)κηβολōι58. In this last example, however, the initial <h> may represent the aspiration or even the group /he/.59

It is evident how these islands have a slightly different system in place when compared to the most eastern sites and the southern Aegean. Their distinction is not between /e/ and /ɛ:/, as happens in the eastern settlements. Here, the inherited long vowel /ɛ:/ is assimilated with /e/ in the graphic record, therefore appearing as |E|. What is actually being distinguished with another grapheme is /æ:/, a secondary long vowel produced by the closing of inherited /a:/. Nonetheless, the phonetic and graphic distinctions did not last long, for in later inscriptions |h| and |è| render inherited /ɛ:/ and /æ:/ from /a:/. This suggests that the two sounds have then merged in /ɛ:/.60

In Thera we also find both |h| and |E| for /ɛ:/. However, the choice of graphemes does not seem to have any structure. |h| appears in the names in -κλης, -ρης and -γενης,61 <mAlhQOÑ> Μαληϙος (*EG* I 532.5, second half of the 7th century), <EÚmhlOÑ> Ευμηλος (*IG* XII 3.540, late 8th century) and the verb <hmi> ημι (*LSAG* 470.A, third quarter of the 7th century). The latter is a clear example of /ɛ:/ as a result of CL1 in the 'medium' vowel system of this dialect. This result, however, is not consistently rendered by |h|, as seen in *EG* I 352.5 <2É4AÏÉÚÑ> Πε̄ραιευς.62 Other instances of |E|

55 The original inscription is written in boustrophedon starting from left to right and the last line faces upside down in comparison with the other two. These characteristics have been homogenised in the transcription which reads from left to right only.

56 τίθημι from PIE \*dh eh1 and aorist θῆκε < \*dh eh1 -k-et (Beekes 2010, 1482 f.); \*dheə1 in Chantraine 2009, 1078.

57 Cf. Νικάνδρα in *LGPN*.

58 Cf. ϝεκαβολōι in Boeotian *LSAG* 94.01.

59 Specifically about Nikandre and the dialectal features seen in the inscription see Lejeune 1949; Levin 1970; Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 291; Guarducci 1995, 154–156; Gomis García 2018, 70.

60 A deeper study of the phonetic and graphic phenomenon of the open front vowels in the Cyclades can be found in Gomis García 2018, §§<IP_ADDRESS> and <IP_ADDRESS>.

61 *EG* I 352.5 (second half of the 7th century) <24OklhÑ> Προκλης, <O4ZO8lhÑ> Ορθοκλης; *IG* XII 3.536 (late 8th century) <ÉN2hÉ4hÑ> Ενφερης, <EN2EdOKlhÑ> Ενπεδοκλης; *IG* XII 3.767 (late 8th century) <8hA4mOgENhÑ> Κ*h*αρμογενης; *LSAG* 323.1aii (late 8th century?) <ZÁ4hÑ ANAÑi8lhÑ> Θαρης, Ανασικλης; *LSAG* 323.3 (7th century?) <ETEoKlhîÁ> Ετεοκληια instead of Ετεοκλεια by analogy with the male Ετεοκλης (Bechtel 1923, 524).

62 From πείρω < \*per-i ̯e/o (Beekes 2010, 1164).

*Figure 4.4: Inscriptions from Mt. Hymettos with eta. From left to right and top to bottom: Hymettos 15.9, 27.73, 15.3 and 13.2. Drawings made by the author after Elvira Astoreca 2020, fig. 4.5.*

for /ɛ:/ are *EG* I 352.5 (second half of the 7th century) <4ÉKÑANo4> Ρε̄κσανωρ63, *IG* XII 3.540 (late 8th century) <ORKEÑTA> ορκ*h*ε̄στα[ς] and *LSAG* 323.1ai (late 8th century?) <TE%E> τε̄δε.

The map (Figure 4.2) shows how in mainland Greece and the Italic peninsula the norm is having the same grapheme for both /e/ and /ɛ:/, with one exception at Mt. Hymettos. In general, the inscriptions from this site – dated in the 7th century – follow the tendency of the rest of Attica (<E> for /e/ and /ɛ:/), as can be seen in the inherited /ɛ:/ of the ανεθε̄κε inscriptions (15.11–17.18), in the

endings -ε̄μος and -ε̄ς for masculine proper names in 22.36,64 <TLE6IA6> Τλε̄σιας in 22.3765, <TENdI> τε̄νδι 23.49 and <èÉR> 41.173 for Hε̄ρ[ακλε̄ς or Hε̄ρ[οος.66 The sign <è> is, nevertheless, seen in three inscriptions where apparently it is rendering /ɛ:/: 13.2, 15.9 and 27.73 (Figure 4.4).67 In the case of <ïèÑIOI> Σημιōι (13.2) – if we follow Langdon's reading68 – it is a secondary /ɛ:/ from /a:/, while <èRAKGè> *h*ε̄ρακλη[69 (15.9) suggests that we are dealing with secondary /ɛ:/ from VC in the case of the second <è>, while the first one could be a primary /ɛ:/ or even /hɛ:/,70 depending on the interpretation of the text. Finally, 27.73 is too fragmentary to be of much use in this discussion, but the position of <è> after delta suggests that it should be treated as a vowel and not an aspiration.71

These inscriptions have been interpreted by Langdon as evidence for a very young script that is not yet fully established and so it shows considerable variations in

63 From the aorist form ῥῆξαι of ῥήγνυμι < \*ureh1 ǵ (Beekes 2010, 1282) or \*wrēg- (Chantraine 2009, 938) and therefore an inherited /ɛ:/.

64 <N[…]dEmoî> Ν[ιϙο]δε̄μος / Μ[ενε]δε̄μος; <LÉO[…]dÉí> Λεο[φρα]δε̄ς.

65 See *LGPN* Tλησίας.

66 Readings by Young 1940, 3.

67 Hymettos 15.3 is also thought to show an eta, but the sign is too fragmented to be sure and thus it was not included in this discussion.

68 Langdon 1976, 13 no. 2.

69 My own reading after an autopsy of the inscription. Cf. *h*ε<ρ>ακλη[εει or *h*ε Ακλη[ in Langdon 1976, 15 no. 9.

70 Young 1940, 6. This phenomenon is well attested throughout Greece, see Nikandre's inscription above and Sturtevant 1940, 32; Brixhe 1991, 321; Wachter 1991, 55–57; Gomis García 2018, 70.

71 The inscription is read from left to right, making the first line <Edè> ]ΕΔΗ. Since delta cannot be the end of a word in Greek, with most probability <è> is not an initial aspiration, but a vowel.

the lettering and admits influences from other scripts, in this case Ionic.72 Threatte proposes another explanation for the use of |è|-/ɛ:/ before the Eucledian reform in Attica; these inscriptions from Hymettos were actually written by non-Athenian hands.73 While the other two inscriptions are not conclusive in this respect, the use of <G> for /l/ in 15.9 supports Threatte's view and could easily indicate a writer coming from the Aegean Islands or Asia Minor, since that shape is not used for /l/ in any other inscription from Hymettos, where |G| always renders /g/.74 However, narrowing down the origin of the individual(s) who could have written these etas is more difficult.

The only places where /l/ has been attested with the shape <G> in the corpus used here are Lakonia and Olympia, which should be discarded for the lack of graphic differentiation between /e/ and /ɛ:/. Therefore, we may look at areas where /l/ is written |l|, since it is still a downward lambda, the opposite version of |L|. This letter is attested together with |è| as /ɛ:/ in Naxos, Chios, Ephesus and Samos, places where evidence for |G|-/l/ is also found in later inscriptions.75 To narrow it even further, we might want to take the shape for /s/ in Hymettos 13.2 <ï>, which, outside of this site, is only seen together with |è| as /ɛ:/ in Samos. Given the fact that this island is the only place where the three letters are attested outside of Hymettos, it seems probable that this could be the place of origin for both inscriptions, although other Ionian settlements cannot be discounted.76

With the interpretation of these pre-Euclidean etas in Mt. Hymettos as the result of eastern Ionians, the general picture then emerges without any exceptions. By the 7th century BC, graphic differentiation of /e/ and /ɛ:/ is present throughout the islands of the Aegean (except the Cyclades) and in Asia Minor, while the western alphabets of mainland Greece and the Italic peninsula keep a single grapheme for both sounds. The Cyclades, however, follow a different tendency, where a distinction is made with /æ:/ rather than /ɛ:/.

This situation does not correspond to geographical distribution only, but it is connected to psilosis and the use of |h| and |è| for the initial aspiration /h/ in western alphabets. Psilosis is a dialectal feature seen in the eastern settlements and characterised by the loss of initial aspiration. This affects the way in which the Semitic letter ḥeth and/or Greek heta are understood in these areas. We should bear in mind that the shapes of both eta and heta are derived from Semitic ḥeth H and, therefore, these come as part of the basic alphabetic sequence transmitted throughout Greece;

72 Langdon 1976, 42 f.

73 Threatte 1980, 42. Langdon seems not to consider this possibility, since he believes that the sanctuary was used by the dwellers of the Athenian plane (Langdon 1967, 7 f.).

74 In the two instances where its value is not completely sure (Hymettos 13.1, 27.67), it is most likely /g/ as well.

75 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 289 and 324.

76 The Heraion in Samos could lure in citizens from other islands and we might be lacking evidence from other Ionian settlements, so the evidence is not conclusive.

the position of eta/heta in abecedaria confirms this. Since the consonantal element is absent in psilotic dialects, however, the grapheme is available for a vocalic e-sound.77

Nevertheless, the use of |h| in the Cyclades for the values /h/, /æ:/ and /he/ complicates the picture and raises two questions:

With the current state of the evidence, we can confirm that the use of such a sign with a vocalic value is a Greek innovation; no other communities use it in this way at that point in time.78 The origin of this novelty, however, is more difficult to ascertain. Following the theory of the change of value from /h/ to /ɛ:/, three possible scenarios appear. The first sees a chain effect, where the consonantal/syllabic letter could have been transmitted from western Greece to the Cyclades, taken a vocalic value there and later transmitted to the psilotic dialects, keeping its vocalic value only. A second option is that the Cyclades take this multiple use directly from a Semitic source and, again, once it is transmitted to the eastern Aegean only the vocalic value remains.79 Another possibility is that the Cyclades, standing in the middle, receive influences from both western and eastern alphabets; hence the multiple values for this grapheme. Of course, there is still a fourth, less likely option, especially unpleasant for those supporting the monogenesis of the Greek alphabets: the possibility that these areas developed their vocalic, consonantal or mixed values for this grapheme independently.

Nevertheless, if we accept that eta in the Cyclades and the psilotic dialects is related, how can we account for the different uses of this letter in those areas? This can be easily explained by the fact that the development of vowel /æ:/ from Proto-Greek /a:/ is a feature that, at the time, applied only to the Cycladic dialect. In others the merger between the closing of /a:/ and /ɛ:/ – that, as discussed above, will come later in the Cyclades – seems to have taken place already. Thus, whether the letter eta originated here and was then transmitted to speakers of psilotic dialects or the other way around, the uses of letter eta in Cycladic writing and the eastern alphabets clearly respond to a difference in their phonological repertoires: <h> for /ɛ:/ vs. <E> for /e/ in eastern dialects and <h> for /æ:/ vs. <E> for /ɛ:/ and /e/ in the Cyclades.

#### *4.2.2 /ɔ:/*

Contexts for this sound are less attested than those for the open-mid-front vowel /ɛ:/ (Table 4.8). The map (Figure 4.5) shows that, in addition to the smaller amount

77 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 28; Ruijgh 1997, 568.

78 The sign is completely absent in Phrygian. In Eteocretan it will appear only in late texts, see n. 50 above. Etruscans adopt the western consonantal value /h/.

79 Woodard (2019, 104–107) argues that the values of this letter seem to imitate the use of he E as ML in Aramaic.

*Table 4.8: Representations of /ɔ:/.*

*Figure 4.5: Geographical distribution of the graphic solutions for /ɔ:/.*

of evidence, fewer communities practice graphic differentiation for the vowel /ɔ:/ than they do for /ɛ:/. Mainland Greece and the settlements to the West follow the same tendency as they did with /ɛ:/, using the same grapheme as that for the short mid-vowels. But the islands of the Aegean and the eastern settlements do not follow a unified pattern in this case.

In Asia Minor we have evidence of |Ó| and its allograph <ó> used for /ɔ:/ in Smyrna and Samos. The sign is a new creation, probably originated in the area of Asia Minor.80 It is a modification of omicron and, as an *Additionsreform*, it appears at the end of the alphabetic sequence attested in Samos.81 This new letter, omega, is used in all Ionic and Doric settlements in Asia Minor.82

80 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 38; Guarducci 1995, 101.

81 'A doublet formed from O by breaking the circle' (Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 38); cf. Guarducci 1995, 101. See the abecedarium in §3.3.6.

82 The evidence from the Aeolic settlements of Asia Minor is too scarce to corroborate whether omega

This distinction is also practised with other shapes derived from |O| in some islands of the Aegean. |o| for /ɔ:/ is seen in Thera and in Anaphe.83 The latter case, however, cannot be argued as being a clear instance of graphic distinction. The only archaic inscription from this island, *LSAG* 324.26 (7th century?), does not seem to have a consistent use of the sign:

<A9QUTíoNTondEToNZoQONEPOíh>

Αγϙυ{λ}<τ>ιōν τονδε τον θōϙον εποιη[σα]84

At the start of the inscription all instances of both /o/ and /ɔ:/ are written <o>, while the last two examples of /o/ are rendered by <O>. This could always be an epigraphic matter and the dot might have been erased through erosion; but, in any case, it seems that there is no actual distinction between /o/ and /ɔ:/ since they are both written as <o> in the first half of the inscription. Unfortunately, there are no other inscriptions that can confirm the values applied to these signs.

In Crete, only Afrati shows a graphic differentiation of this phoneme. Here, the sign |\*| is used for /ɔ:/ systematically in the inscriptions on bronze armours, *e.g.* Hoffmann 1972.M1 <OEuKl\*TA> ο Ευκλωτα.85 The rest of the sites show no graphic distinction for /ɔ:/: Dreros *BCH* 70.600.4 (7th century) <OÑ> ος, <dÍdOÍ> διδōι; Gortyna *IC* IV I.21 (second half of the 7th–early 6th century) <AN0OTEROÑ> ανποτερōς.86

The peoples of Thasos also practised a clear graphic distinction for /ɔ:/. However, in this island the signs are used in the opposite way compared to the eastern Ionian tradition: |Ó| renders /o/ and /o:/, while |O| is used for /ɔ:/. This use can be seen in Glaucos' memorial inscription (*LSAG* 307.61, last quarter of the 7th century),87 where the genitive singular of the second declension /o:/ is rendered by <Ó>, but the genitive singular masculine of the first declension in the Ionic dialect /ɔ:/88 appears as <O>: <GlAuQÓ> Γλαυϙō, <TÓlÉ=TINÉO> τō Λεπτινεω, <ÓICRÉNTEOPAIòEí> οι Βρεντεω παιδες. The inscriptions from Paros (*i.e.* Thasos' metropolis), seem to suggest that this was also the norm there at the time and until the 5th century BC.89

84 Transcription from *IG* XII 3.255.

was used, but judging from *LSAG* 361.1f (Larisa, 6th century) <ZèOòO4Oï> Θεοδōρος, it seems that it was not the case. For |è| rendering /e/ in Larisa, see §4.1.2.

83 Its use in Thera seems systematic, cf. *EG* I 352.5 (second half of the 7th century), *IG* XII 3.536, 540 (both late 8th century), *LSAG* 323.1ai (8th century), 470.A (third quarter of the 7th century). Only one exception in *EG* I 350.3 (late 8th-early 7th century) <KhÍ4ON> for Κ*h*ιρōν.

85 Cf. Hoffmann 1972. H2, H3, M2, M5, M7, M8, M9, M10. All inscriptions from Afrati mentioned in this book are dated approximately from the third quarter of the 7th century to early 6th century.

86 Cf. *IC* IV I.1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14 and *LSAG* 315.1a-h, all dated around the second half of the 7th century. For later evidence of |\*|-/ɔ:/ see Thompson 2006, §4.

87 Cf. *SEG* 14.565; Pouilloux 1955.

88 Buck 1955, §41.4.

89 Cf. Commentary on *LSAG* 305.25 in §4.2.4; Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 289; Guarducci 1995, 158–164; Gomis García 2018, 85–7.

The graphemes used suggest that the peoples of Paros and Thasos were aware of the eastern Ionic convention, but the reason why they used them in the opposite way is unclear. It has been proposed that Parians imitated the Dorians from Melos and Cnidos in this use, although in those islands |O| for /ɔ:/ is only attested later. In these sites, however, the sign used for /o/ was |C|, which in Paros represented /b/. Therefore, Parians decided to take the shape |Ó| from the Milesians, who were close allies.90

The rest of the Ionic islands show evidence of no graphic distinction for /ɔ:/ and they will not adopt it until the 5th century BC.91 This suggests that eastern Greeks sought the distinction of /ɛ:/ earlier than they did for /ɔ:/. In fact, there are no sites where /ɔ:/ has a distinct grapheme, but /ɛ:/ does not. This might have been because the presence of |h| in the early sequence enables its use as a vocalic sign for /ɛ:/ in the psilotic dialects, as was argued earlier. Since there is no sign to mark that difference between /o/ and /ɔ:/, then an *Additionsreform* was necessary to create such a sign.

#### *4.2.3 /e:/*

Contexts where we expect /e:/ are scarcely attested and, in most cases, they show no graphic distinction between /e/ and /e:/. Thus, the most popular sign for this phoneme is |E| (Table 4.9). The sites that show evidence of the lack of graphic differentiation at this time are Euboea and its colonies, Kalapodi in Phthiotis, Asia Minor, Crete and Thera.

Nevertheless, out of the 64 examples of /e:/-|E|, 43 would count as being a graphic distinction from /e/; this is the case of the Corinthian sites, where |E| renders /e:/, while |B| represents /e/ and /ɛ:/. This is the only area where a unique grapheme is used to distinguish this phoneme. Since Corinthian |E| is used for both the ancient diphthong /ei/92 and the result of contractions and CL in /e:/, we can assume that the monophthongization of /ei/ to /e:/ has already taken place in the area.93 Nevertheless, the situation in Penteskouphia is quite complex. Although the majority of the plaques from the sanctuary follow the tendency established for Corinthia (40 out of 48 |E| = /e:/), there are five inscriptions that show  for /e:/94 and three with a digraph <Bï> for /e:/.95 In all cases, these are representing the diphthong in the theonym Ποτειδάν.96 We might

90 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 294; Gomis García 2018, 86.

91 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 290.

92 See the form <=OTEdAn> Ποτειδαν repeated multiple times in the Proto-Corinthian plaques from Penteskouphia (*IG* IV 1.210–345).

93 Cf. <Emï> ειμι in *IG* IV 1.326 and 327. Kretschmer 1894, 35; López Eire 1970, 26; Lejeune 1972, 229.

94 *IG* IV 1.216 (could be the first grapheme of the diphthong represented by <Bï>), 237, 264, 265, 277. 95 *IG* IV 1.224, 270, 272.

96 The plaques should represent the same phonological stage since they are found within one deposit and all show a Proto-Corinthian style. Thus, they should all belong to a similar date (Bookidis 2002, 253). Therefore, these inconsistencies could show an ongoing change either on the graphic or the phonological level.

*Table 4.9: Representations of /e:/.*

assume then that <Bï> is an attempt to write down the ancient diphthong, while those instances written with  are cases of no graphic distinction between /e/ and /e:/. The digraph is nonetheless seen in Corfu for /e:/ as the result of e+e contraction,97 suggesting that it could still be another solution to /e:/ after the monophthongization, instead of a representation of the diphthong.98

We might also want to see evidence for the monophthongization of /ei/ in the representation of /e:/ with a digraph. This use is seen in Attica, Boeotia, Thasos and Selinunte.99 Only one of these examples is not an instance of the verb εἰμί, the late 8th-century Theran *IG* XII 3.543, where <O4KhEîTAÍ> ορκ*h*ειται shows the use of the digraph <Eî> for /e:/, instead of the usual <E>-/e:/ that we see in the island: *IG* XII 3.536 (late 8th century) <qoRkETO> ϙωρκ(*h*)ε̄το, *LSAG* 323.4 & 470.A <EPOÍE> εποιε̄, both late 7th century.100

Those instances that show the digraph in the verb εἰμί, however, are somehow problematic. If we look at later evidence, we see that <EImI> is a common form in Attic inscriptions of the whole archaic period, whereas <EmI> is actually quite rare.101 Moreover, the digraph is only seen in other results of CL and vowel contraction much later and scarcely. Therefore, these examples of εἰμί should not be taken as the result of 1CL since they might represent a real diphthong out of analogy with the second person singular εἶ or the verb εἶμι.102

This makes the Corinthian and Theran examples the only certain evidence for the sound /e:/. Despite their scarcity, these examples offer an interesting insight on the date of the monophthongization of /ei/, which is highly debated and normally considered much later.103

97 *LSAG* 234.9 (last quarter of the 7th century): <7POí7í> εποιει.

98 Kretschmer (1894, §16) believes that Corfu has already abandoned the use of |E|-/e:/ by the time of the earliest inscriptions and use the digraph <Bï> instead, while the Corinthians keep the use of the single grapheme.

99 This might indicate that their metropoleis, Paros and Megara Hyblaia and possibly also Megara, could have this use as well. In this corpus /e:/ is not attested for those sites, but it appears in an inscription from Megara Hyblaia dated in the 6th century: *EG* I 315.6 <ÉIÑI> ειμ[ι] and 317.8 <éIÑI> ειμι.

100 Cf. Bechtel 1923, 523 f.

101 Threatte 1980, 176 f.

102 Sturtevant 1937, 150; Threatte 1980, 176 f. In the case of εἶμι there is a PIE diphthong from \*h1 ei- (Beekes 2010).

103 At least the orthographic reform in Athens does not happen until the late 5th century BC (Sihler 1995, §76.a; van Emde Boas *et al.* 2019, 10) or even later ca. 350 BC (Threatte 1980, 299).

#### *4.2.4 /o:/*

As shown in Table 4.10, this corpus offers only a few examples of this phoneme. Luckily, these are spread out across many sites. Thus, we can see that the general tendency across Greek sites is to use no graphic differentiation between /o/ and /o:/, even in sites where /o/-/ɔ:/ or /e/-/e:/ distinction is used. This lack of graphic distinction explains why |O| is the most widespread sign for this phoneme. Also |Ó| comes as no surprise, since in Thasos this is the grapheme used for both /o/ and /o:/, as was mentioned earlier, and therefore it cannot be considered as a form of graphic distinction.104 This use is attested also in an inscription ca. 650 BC from its metropolis, Paros, found in the Delian Artemision (*LSAG* 365.25a). According to Guarducci, here the ending <hGÖ> -ηγō can only be the genitive form of a name in -ηγος, and therefore an instance of /o:/.105 This will be the norm in Paros until the 5th century BC with very few exceptions.106

The shape |o| is seen in one inscription from Methone (Methone 437.4, late 8th – early 7th century) where this sign seems to render /o:/, if we understand <ZEo> as a genitive. However, we cannot talk about a real graphic distinction of this phoneme in this case, since the other instances of /o:/ from the site – also in genitive endings – clearly show <O> as /o:/.107 Thus, the tendency seen in all Euboean sites and their colonies is followed in this case as well; for there is no graphic distinction for any of the long vowels in these areas.

The only clear example of an inscription that distinguishes /o:/ graphically is Menekrates' tomb in Corfu (*LSAG* 234.9, last quarter of the 7th century). In this text, both /o/ and /ɔ:/ appear as <O> (*e.g.* <Ol7TO> ōλετο), while /o:/ from the contraction of o+o after loss of intervocalic sigma is systematically rendered by <OU>: <hUíOU> *h*υιου, <dAmOU> δαμου. This inscription distinguishes only long-closed vowels but not long-open, as can be seen from the previous examples and supported by the forms <7POí7í> εποιει and <P4A(ím7N7Ñ> Πραξιμενε̄ς. Therefore, it follows the western tendency of not distinguishing the long-open, but it includes an innovation, the use of digraphs for both long-closed vowels. We might think then that the monophthongization of /ou/ has happened in this area by the last quarter of the

104 See §4.2.2 for the explanation of this phenomenon in Glauco's inscription (*LSAG* 307.61).

105 Guarducci 1995, 159 f., no. 5.

106 Gomis García 2018, 94 f.

107 This is the case of Hakesandros' inscription (Methone 339.2) <hAKEíAN%ROEM> *h*ακεσανδρō ε̄μ[ι and also Methone 350.7, that could also be an ownership statement with εἰμί, <OEm> ]ō ε̄μ[ι. All inscriptions from Methone are dated between the late 8th and the early 7th century BC.

7th century, if we follow Jeffery's dating of this inscription.108 It is noteworthy that in Corfu only digraphs are used for the long-closed vowels, contrary to the tendency in Corinthia, where at this point we can find a specific grapheme for /e:/ and no graphic distinction for /o:/.109

We can conclude, therefore, that except for Menekrates' tomb – if we want to keep Jeffery's dating – there is no graphic differentiation between /o/ and /o:/ in early Greek alphabetic writing. In addition, we may assume that the monophthongization of /ou/ is happening later than that of /ei/, since there are no other cases of /o:/ using a digraph or of the diphthong /ou/ with a single grapheme. The evidence from Corinth suggests that this process closed in the area around the 7th–6th centuries BC.110

#### **4.3 Some considerations on the notation of the vowels**

#### *4.3.1 The vocalic letters as a Greek invention*

As mentioned earlier, the systematic notation of vowels is the main difference between Greek and NWS writing systems and, as such, it has received a considerable amount of attention in previous scholarship. However, we should not forget that this is not only true of Greek, but of all NEM writing systems that appeared around the same time. I have claimed that, at least in grapholinguistic terms, this apparently new way of writing does not respond to the creation of a new typology of writing systems, as argued by scholars following evolutionary theories, but to a change in the orthographic trends of these alphabets. So, we still need to ask ourselves: was this change promoted by Greek speakers?

One of the most notable theories around the creation of full vowel notation is that of Wade-Gery and followed by Powell.111 They believe that not only are vowel letters a Greek invention, but also that these were created in order to record Homeric poetry. This assumption rests on the fact that Greek poetry is based on the rhythm created by the moraic nature of its syllables, which can be long or short, and therefore vowels are needed to mark the rhythm. This reasoning, however, is flawed in many ways. Principally, because vowels are not the only markers of syllable length,112 but most importantly, because the letters used to render vowels in Greek writing do not mark length.

Following what has been discussed in the previous section, the signs for long vowels present in some Greek alphabets do not represent a difference in quantity, but a difference in quality of sound. These long vowels have a more open or close

108 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 234 no. 9.

109 No graphic distiction of /o:/ in Corinthian is seen in Penteskouphia, *e.g. IG* IV 1.326: <ïmOÈmï> ]ιμō ειμι. 110 Lejeune 1945, 108; López Eire 1970, 27.

111 Wade-Gery 1952; Powell 1988; 1989; 1991a; 1991b; 2006.

112 The basic rule of classification of syllable length in Greek is the following: 'A syllable is long if it is "closed" (*i.e.* ends with a consonant), or if it contains a long vowel or diphthong. Otherwise it is short' (West 1982, 8).

quality compared to their short counterparts and, wherever this difference is not present – *i.e.* /a/-/a:/, /i/-/i:/ and /u/-/u:/ or /y/-/y:/ – we see no graphic differentiation between long and short vowels. This argument is reinforced by the examples of interchangeability of |h| and |E| seen in §4.1.2, explained by the collapse of open- and close-long into a mid long vowel with the same sound quality as /e/.113 Therefore, Greeks do not seem to have any issues with quantity ambiguity, as shown by the alphabets that do not have any kind of graphic distinction for the long vowels and also by the syllabic systems for the Greek language (Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries) that have a 5-vowel representation system.114

Moreover, there is no clear reason why we should think that Greeks created vocalic notation for the alphabetic writing system. Earlier inscriptions in Phrygian and the unknown language in the Osteria dell'Osa inscription have a similar graphic vocalic system in place before any visible writing appears in Greece. It is still a pending task to solve the genealogy of these systems and the Greek alphabets – if this is possible at all – before we can assess which one had letters for vowels first. In any case, we still have to account for the use of partial vocalic notation in NWS writing as well.

In Aramaic, this system consists of the notation of long vowels, mainly in final positions, using signs that serve a consonantal value elsewhere: he E, yodh I and waw W. 115 It is certainly telling that at least he and waw became the model for the graphemes |E| and |U|, used as vocalic signs in the NEM alphabets. However, these signs are used to render short vowels, and in some instances long vowels as well, by the time visible writing starts to appear for the NEM alphabetic writing systems. This implies that, if Aramaic ML was the model used for the vowel signs, at least one important orthographic reform has happened during the adoption of NWS writing by NEM peoples but before the earliest inscriptions appear. This reform consists of the systematic use in any position of the aforementioned signs for both long and short vowels. Ιt also comes with an added graphematic reform in which other Semitic consonantal signs are used for the remaining vowels: 'aleph A for /a/, /a:/ and 'ayin O for /o/, /o:/ and in some alphabets /ɔ:/.116

These reforms raise the question of whether a Greek alphabet, or any other related writing system, had a period of imitation of the Aramaic orthography117 or even the Phoenician, which does not use ML.118 Unfortunately, there is no clear evidence of any of these two possibilities, either complete absence or partial vowel notation

113 This phenomenon can also be appreciated in the long back vowels in Cretan, cf. Thompson 2006, 97. 114 Cf. Woodard 2019, 92.

115 For a reconstruction of how Aramaic ML could have been a model for the vocalic notation system in the Greek alphabets see Woodard 2019, esp. 96 for a summary of the functioning of Aramaic ML.

116 Perhaps 'aleph was also transmitted with a vocalic value, since it is seen for /a:/ in the transcription of a non-Phoenician name in the inscription for king Kilamuwa in Cyprus (Tropper 1993, 170 f.). 117 Cf. Gelb 1969, 182; Isserlin 1983, 1991.

118 Naveh 1997, 62; Röllig 1998, 363. This is only seen in the transcription of foreign names (Krahmalkov 2001, 16 f.; Willi 2005, 167; Signes Codoñer 2010, 253; Luraghi Forthcoming).

in Greek writing.119 This scenario is highly improbable and, if it ever happened, it must have been for a very short period of time. This is due to the large amount of linguistic information offered by Greek vowels and necessary for an effective written communication, *e.g.* phonological, morphological, syntactic and, most of all, semantic information.120 I do not rule out, however, the possibility of Greek communities or individuals that could write in a Semitic language and writing system before applying the principles of alphabetic writing to their own language. Nevertheless, once this is adapted for Greek, full vowel notation becomes necessary.

This need responds to some of the characteristics of Indo-European languages. One of these factors is the appearance of vowels in word-initial position, something that does not happen in Semitic languages.121 Most importantly, lexical morphemes in the latter are formed by consonants, whereas in Greek and other Indo-European languages, both consonants and vowels bear basic semantic information needed to recognise morphemes.122 In fact, there are cases where two different lexical morphemes are differentiated with one vowel only, *e.g.* ἄρχομαι and ἔρχομαι. This is the main reason why Greek peoples needed a vowel notation system that differentiates vowel sound quality.

Nevertheless, we cannot be completely certain that the letters used for short vowels in Greek are their own innovation and we should still consider the possibility of an intermediary (or intermediaries) between NWS writing and the epichoric alphabets. The latter scenario is clearly reinforced, at least in the case of some of these alphabets, by the earlier appearance of straight iota in Phrygian and in the Italic peninsula.

However, in the analysis carried out in this chapter one can identify some innovations only seen in Greek vocalic notation. The use of |h| and |è| with a vocalic value is one of them, even though these signs have a Semitic counterpart and are transmitted in the Greek alphabets within the original alphabetic sequence, as is illustrated by their position in abecedaria. Nonetheless, the use of these graphemes in related writing systems is not attested until later and their use to represent a vowel seems to be restricted to the islands of the Aegean and Asia Minor. This use is probably enabled by the absence of initial /h/ in the psilotic dialects of these areas, producing thus a *Funktionsreform* that allowed the use of the grapheme with a vocalic sign. However, as mentioned earlier, there is always the possibility that the ambivalent use given to this sign in the Cyclades comes first, perhaps inspired by

119 I consider the inscription without vowels from Eretria (Kenzelmann Pfyffer *et al.* 2005, 76 f. no. 66) to be most probably Semitic and not an example of a Greek name without vowels (Elvira Astoreca 2021). Also the examples of omitted vowels in Wachter 1991 cannot be interpreted as evidence from a previous system with none or partial vowel notation, cf. Wachter 1991, 71–74.

120 Cf. Elvira Astoreca, 2021.

121 Voegelin and Voegelin 1961, 61.

122 De Kerckhove 1988, 155.

the use of another Semitic letter, he E, as ML in Aramaic.123 Hence this innovation corresponds only to a *Funktionsreform* originated in an indeterminate spot in the Aegean or Asia Minor.

The signs for /ɔ:/, on the other hand, reveal local innovations that happened independently in several Greek-speaking communities. Some of them decided to create a sign for such a sound and modified |O| in different ways for this purpose. It is noticeable that eta is present in all these alphabets, which creates an imbalance in the vocalic notation system and prompts the addition of a letter for /ɔ:/. The distinct graphemes, however, suggest that their creation may have been done independently in some of these sites. Later in time another innovation would follow, and that is the use of digraphs for the close-mid vowels. As discussed above, this must be quite a recent development and one that is restricted to specific areas. In fact, not all Greek alphabets share these innovations and there are still some (like Euboean, possibly Attic and Boeotian?) that do not use any of them. This suggests that some alphabets feel comfortable with the ambiguity in the representation of these sounds provoked by the 5-vowel representation system, while others do have a wish to distinguish them in writing.

#### *4.3.2 Vowel signs as an argument for monogenesis*

The analysis in this chapter has shown multiple examples of vocalic letters that show a stable graphematic relationship, not only across the Greek alphabets, but also in Phrygian, Eteocretan and in the Italic alphabets. These stable vocalic letters are mainly alpha, epsilon – although with a few localised exceptions – omicron and ypsilon. The stability of these letters in this wide geographic context is present from the earliest alphabetic inscriptions. For this reason, it has been used repeatedly as an argument for the monogenesis of the Greek alphabets. Scholars supporting this theory argue that the similarities in the letters for the vowels are so significant that they cannot be explained by close contacts, but that they must derive from the same *Uralphabet*, *i.e.* a single source of creation for the Greek alphabets.124

If that is the case, then we should hypothesise an *Uralphabet* for all NEM alphabets, including Phrygian, Eteocretan, Etruscan and the writing system used in the mysterious inscription from Osteria dell'Osa. Even if this unique source – the 'proto-North-Eastern-Mediterranean alphabet' – ever existed, it would not be easy to reconstruct with the current evidence what it looked like and where or when it was used. A more fruitful pursuit, in my opinion, would be to analyse and compare those notation systems that are visible to us and that undoubtedly show that vocalic notation is a widespread innovation in the area by the time visible writing starts to appear.

From the study carried out here, it is evident that vocalic notation has spread around the NEM alphabets with a set of core letters that are shared among them:

123 Woodard 2019, 104–107.

124 See §§1.1 and 1.2.

mainly alpha A, omicron O, ypsilon U and, to some extent, epsilon E as well. However, when looking at the differences between alphabets we may also see reforms such as Corinthian |B| and Sikyonian |e| for /e/, the use of |E| for /e:/ in Corinthia and the different signs for /ɔ:/ such as |o|, |\*| and |Ó|. These are clear local independent graphematic reforms. In these cases either sounds shared across dialects bear characteristic shapes in specific areas or a different phonetic value is assigned to widespread graphemes.125

How can we then interpret those letters that expanded throughout multiple alphabets but still are not shared by all? The case of eta is singular, but easy to explain. The signs |h| and |è| are clearly part of the core alphabetic script in all alphabets, but they are interpreted as a vowel, a consonant or both depending on the dialectal traits of the area. The representation of /i/ and /i:/, however, shows a different picture. The distribution of straight and crooked iotas suggests that these are two separated traditions that are expanding throughout the NEM and that this is not a secondary reform replicated across alphabets, but that for most of them the use of one or the other is being inherited through the adoption of another alphabet. This implies that there are two branches of core letters spreading in the NEM: one with straight iota and sigma for the sibilant, the other with crooked iota and san.126

The existence of two branches of core letters already rules out the possibility of a 'unified' Greek alphabet that has a unique point of transmission. On the contrary, at least two different – although not completely unrelated – alphabetic traditions are present in the Aegean and the NEM by the time of the earliest Greek inscriptions. Unfortunately, it is not possible to identify when, where or how these were developed since they are already in place by the time of the explosion of visible writing in the NEM.

#### *4.3.3 The different vocalic notation systems in the Greek epichoric alphabets*

Looking at the differences that concern the vocalic notation systems, we see that reforms are not exclusive of the graphic side of the writing system, *i.e.* the script. In fact, in the notation of long vowels, it is easily recognisable how the vocalic notation systems actually work differently for several Greek alphabets. The most evident difference lies in the use of multiple graphic solutions for the notation of the vowels /ɛ:/, /æ:/, /e:/, /ɔ:/ and /o:/. Although it is important to bear in mind that not every dialect has all of these sounds, they all have at least one long mid-front and one long mid-back vowel. Some alphabets do not distinguish these graphically from their short

125 There are also orthographic reforms, which are isolated at this stage: the use of the digraphs <Eî> and <Bï> for /e:/ and <OU> /o:/, cf. §§4.2.3 and 4.2.4.

126 Some exceptions could be those alphabets that show straight iota and san. Perhaps in these cases we are facing a conscious secondary reform in which one of these two letters was changed to imitate nearby alphabets. In this corpus, san and straight iota are attested in Aegina, Argos, Megara Hyblaia and Sikyon, sites that are surrounded by some alphabets using straight iota with sigma and others with crooked iota and san, so contamination from both traditions should not be discarded.

counterparts /e/ and /o/, others use or create a distinct grapheme for at least one of these sounds and others use digraphs for the close-mid. As discussed above, even when one solution is adopted, it is not used in the same ways in all alphabets. See for example how |h| is used for /æ:/ – *i.e.* the closing of /a:/ – in the Cyclades, whereas the same sign represents both primary and secondary /ɛ:/ in Asia Minor and Crete. Similarly, |E| is used in Corinth for /e:/, while other areas use a digraph to distinguish this sound from /e/ in writing.

Another aspect of the difference in the Greek vocalic notation systems lies in the fact that the sounds that are being distinguished graphically vary across alphabets. In Euboea and its colonies, for example, they have a system that keeps five graphemes for all vowels. Therefore, the open-mid and close-mid long vowels are not distinguished from their mid short counterparts even though presumably Euboeans had a system of 7 long vowels in their phonology, like the rest of the Ionic dialects. Both long openmid vowels (/ɔ:/ and /ɛ:/) have graphic differentiation in Asia Minor and Afrati,127 while other sites in Crete only do that for the front open-mid /ɛ:/. Graphic distinction of /ɔ:/ and /æ:/ (but no /ɛ:/) happens in Paros and Thasos; in Naxos this is only for /æ:/. Inscriptions from Corfu show distinct graphemes for both close-mid (/e:/ and /o:/), but no open-mid vowels, whereas Corinthian texts only distinguish /e:/. It is noteworthy that there is no alphabet that shows a graphic distinction for the back close-mid /o:/ or open-mid /ɔ:/ only, or that distinguishes both sets of open- and close-mid vowels.

This means that these innovations happened independently and speakers in each area tailor their writing to fit their specific dialectal needs. In the case of the Cycladic islands, the use of eta to mark their most characteristic dialectal feature is obvious. The opposition /ɛ:/-/æ:/ brings phonological and etymological information, but it is rather superfluous for the understanding of the text, since no semantic information is at play here. This means that the purpose of this letter is to highlight this idiosyncratic element of their dialect. Nevertheless, this does not happen everywhere, as seen in the lack of graphic distinction for all the long vowels in Euboean writing. The reasons why Euboeans decided not to distinguish these vowels is unclear, but it is evident that they felt comfortable with this ambiguity. This is possible because the semantic processing is not endangered by this ambiguity in most cases, unlike in the hypothetical case of Greek writing without vowels, which does involve a loss of semantic information. It is, however, undeniable that the vocalic notation system used in Euboean was clearly not made to fit their Greek dialect and is most probably taken from elsewhere. In other regions, writers tried to make vocalic notation more closely suited to their dialects using the innovations mentioned before.

It is therefore evident from the study carried out in this chapter that throughout Greece the vocalic systems are different both in phonological and graphematic terms. This means that the underlying language system is different and consequently the

127 Possibly in Thera as well, but the evidence presented here is not clear.

writing system is different as well. But as shown here and in the previous chapter, both the script and the writing system as a whole have undergone independent reforms in each of the alphabets used for the Greek language. For this reason, epichoric alphabets should be seen as independent entities. They deserve to be analysed as separate writing systems, each with its unique characteristics and reforms. Thus, we should not only compare them with other alphabets for the Greek language, but also place them within the ecology of alphabets in the ancient Mediterranean.

## Chapter 5

### Consonantal notation in the epichoric alphabets

Continuing with the analysis carried out in the previous chapter, this chapter will explore the consonantal notation in the epichoric alphabets following the same layout for the data and discussion. On this occasion, however, the reader might notice that many of the letters are shared across NWS, Greek and other NEM alphabets. This does not come as a surprise since their sounds have very close points of articulation in all these languages and so their adaptation is not problematic. This does not mean that there will not be a place for different traditions and local developments. In fact, the Greek dialects have some sounds that are not shared with their neighbours, like the aspirated voiceless stops. Moreover, some of the alphabets use single graphemes as an innovative solution for specific consonant clusters. Special emphasis will be given to those areas where differences emerge and reassess how these have been used in order to categorise the epichoric alphabets into larger groups.

#### **5.1 Nasals**

#### *5.1.1 /m/*

Mu is a stable letter across alphabets for Greek, Phrygian, Eteocretan and Etruscan languages that uses a single grapheme as a graphic solution. It has spread all over the NEM with minor variations. The sign choice seen in this case does not offer significant differences in shape, just some disparity in the number and length of the strokes (see Table 5.1). Since the origin of these signs appears to be Semitic mem m, Jeffery suggests that |M| was an older shape that turned into a four-bar mu during the process of transmission.1

In Crete, Thera, Sikinos and probably also in Eteocretan, the use of |M| for /m/ could be understood as a way to differentiate it from san |Ñ|-/s/, and probably also in Eteocretan. However, this is not true either for the rest of the sites that have |M| for /m/, or for all the places that use san. |M| is preferred in Euboea and its colonies,

1 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 31.

*Table 5.1: Representations of /m/.*

where the sibilant is represented by sigma. Elsewhere |m| and sometimes |Ñ| are the signs employed for /m/, even in areas that take san.

An exception to these two trends would be |ñ|, seen in an inscription from Methone (337.1, late 8th–early 7th century). This shape also has a Semitic origin and can be recognised, for instance, in the mem of the Phoenician-Luwian bilingual inscription of the king Azatiwada from Karatepe.2

#### *5.1.2 /n/*

The representation of /n/ is one of the most stable throughout the Greek alphabets (Table 5.2). They all use a single grapheme for this phoneme, specifically |N| and its variant <n>, which derive from Phoenician n. Moreover, /n/ is also the only phonetic value assigned to this grapheme, making it a one-to-one correspondence in the Greek alphabets, Phrygian, Eteocretan and Etruscan. Only in two cases we see it retroverse in comparison to the reading direction (*LSAG* 131.6 ca. 650 and *LSAG* 439.Aa, first half of the 7th century), showing the stability of the sign. Only in one inscription (Hymettos 27.72, 7th century) it is seen as |6|, a shape close to the lettering of the Karatepe bilingual, for example.3

This shows that the representation of both nasal consonants had widely spread around Greece, Phrygia, Etruria and the non-Greek peoples of Crete with very little variation, especially in the case of /n/. It is noteworthy that this letter is present as early as the inscription from Osteria dell'Osa (ca. 775) discussed in the previous chapter.

*Table 5.2: Representations of /n/.*

#### **5.2 Liquids**

#### *5.2.1 /l/*

While all Greek scripts use a single grapheme for /l/, the choice of signs can be categorised in two groups: those where the second stroke looks downward – |l| <9>,

2 Cf. Çambel 1999, pl. 7–19.

3 Cf. Çambel 1999, pl. 7–19.

*Table 5.3: Representations of /l/.*

In some of the sites mentioned above, however, both types are seen in the epigraphic record. This happens in Ithaka and Hymettos. Downward looking lambda is an exception in Hymettos. It appears in the inscription Hymettos 15.9, which, as argued above (see §4.2.1), was written in the Ionic alphabet. In each of the two inscriptions from Ithaka, we find a different type of lambda. *LSAG* 233.1 (ca. 700?) has upward lambdas in <ALSÑTA> μ]αλιστα and <FSLO> φιλο[ς, whereas *LSAG* 234.2 (second half of the 7th century) has downward lambda in <KAlïKlÉAÑPOïAÑÉ> Καλικλεας ποιασε. Judging from a later inscription ca. 550 (*LSAG* 234.3), the upward lambdas could be the exception in Ithaka that will later show a script compatible with the Achaian.7

In the case of lambda, we see two different traditions in the graphematic choice. There seems to be an ordered geographical distribution to them. Attica, Boeotia, Euboea and its colonies use the upward lambdas, as happens in Phrygian and Etruscan, while the Peloponnese, Aegean islands and Asia Minor employ the downward lambdas, which are the most extended. Crete has its own division: upward lambdas in the northern sites (including Eteocretan) and downward lambdas in the south. Moreover, we see a sign choice that is specific to a certain script and that is the Argive lambda ', also seen in Kalymnos.

#### *5.2.2 /r/*

Again, we find a simple grapheme with two possibilities of sign choice (Table 5.4). The most widespread sign for /r/ is |R| – with its variants <3 4> – following the shape of the NWS R. It already appears in the earliest palaeo-Phrygian inscriptions (G-105, early 8th century) and in Eteocretan as well. In some places we find this shape together

4 This is seen in Hymettos 22.37 <T£È6IA6> Τλε̄σιας.

5 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 354 believe that the two alphabets are closely related.

6 See §5.6.3.

7 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 230 f.

*Figure 5.1: Distribution of the different representations of /l/.*

with another one, which includes an extra stroke |r|, and its rounded variant <5>. These sites are Megara Hyblaea, Mt. Hymettos and Naxos. Tailed rho appears on its own only in Sicilian Naxos.

This is therefore a stable letter that seems to be developing another variant with another stroke, which will spread to more sites in the coming centuries. This new sign was a way to distinguish the shape <3> from delta <D> and even pi <?>.8 This innovation will specially spread around the Italic peninsula.

### **5.3 Approximant /w/**

Wherever digamma is still present, this is represented by a grapheme, |V| being the most commonly used (Table 5.5). This shape is also present for /w/ in Phrygian and Eteocretan. In Etruscan, however, this sign represents /v/. The graphs |v| and <w> are exclusive to Gortyna, where they are attested in 10 inscriptions, although it is also found together with |V| in four instances. The origin of these signs is still debated, given that the West Semitic waw W is more clearly related to the shape of ypsilon, although its position in the alphabetic sequence and sound are shared with digamma.

8 Jeffery and Johnston 1990, 34.

*Figure 5.2: Sites with attestations of digamma.*