Greek alphabet with no Greek equivalents still remain in this block (U+03E2 to U+03EF). To write polytonic Greek, one may use combining diacritical marks or the precomposed characters in the "Greek Extended" block (U+1F00 to U+1FFF). Combining and spacing (letter-free) diacritical marks pertaining to Greek language: IBM code pages 437, 860, 861, 862, 863, and 865 contain the letters ΓΘΣΦΩαδεπστφ (plus β as an alternate interpretation for ß). Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late ninth or early eighth century BC. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the first
History of the Greek alphabet and "qōph" represented sounds that were not distinctive in Greek—at most, they may have been identified with allophones determined by the following vowel. The letter qoppa was used in certain Greek dialects (notably the western dialects, which ultimately gave rise to Etruscan and eventually the Latin alphabet), but elsewhere dropped out of general use. It is possible that qoppa had been assigned to the Ancient Greek , and when that sound shifted to , the letter qoppa continued as the letter phi. Phoenician had three letters, "sāmekh, ṣādē" and "šin", representing three or probably four voiceless sibilant sounds, whereas Greek