Greek alphabet which the sequence of the alphabet could be recited and memorized. In Phoenician, each letter name was a word that began with the sound represented by that letter; thus "ʾaleph", the word for "ox", was used as the name for the glottal stop , "bet", or "house", for the sound, and so on. When the letters were adopted by the Greeks, most of the Phoenician names were maintained or modified slightly to fit Greek phonology; thus, "ʾaleph, bet, gimel" became "alpha, beta, gamma". The Greek names of the following letters are more or less straightforward continuations of their Phoenician antecedents.
Greek alphabet neighboring (but otherwise "red") alphabet of Euboia: a form of that resembled a Latin "L" () and a form of that resembled a Latin "S" (). <nowiki>*</nowiki>Upsilon is also derived from waw (). The classical twenty-four-letter alphabet that is now used to represent the Greek language was originally the local alphabet of Ionia. By the late fifth century BC, it was commonly used by many Athenians. In 403 BC, at the suggestion of the archon Eucleides, the Athenian Assembly formally abandoned the Old Attic alphabet and adopted the Ionian alphabet as part of the democratic reforms after the overthrow of