Credited to Greece. The place and date of the adaptation are not settled. Most specialists put it in the early 8th century BCE, perhaps in Euboea; some argue for a much earlier date around the 11th century BCE, and the earliest dated objects in Greek letters include finds from outside Greece.
How it began
The Greeks took over the consonant script used by the Phoenicians and are credited with adding signs for vowels. The prevailing view in classical studies is that this happened in or shortly before the eighth century BCE, when the first alphabetic inscriptions on stone and pottery appear in Greece. Most specialists place the adoption in the early eighth century, perhaps on the island of Euboea. The earliest known fragments of Greek writing date from about 770 to 750 BCE and match Phoenician letter shapes of about 800 to 750 BCE.
Before it existed
In the second millennium BCE the Aegean had used syllabic scripts for about 700 years, of which Linear B, used to write Mycenaean Greek, is the best known. Those scripts went out of use around 1200 BCE. The Phoenician system that came next recorded consonants. A few of its letters could hint at long vowels, an arrangement that suited Semitic languages far better than it suited Greek.
How it works
The adapters reused Phoenician letters for sounds Greek did not have. The letters the Phoenicians called alp and he began, to Greek ears, with vowels, so they were given the values a and e. The letters waw and yod, which could stand for long u and i, became vowels as well. Phoenician had three letters for hissing sounds where Greek needed only one. The result wrote each vowel and consonant with its own sign, so a reader could sound out a word without knowing it in advance.
How it spread
When alphabetic writing appears it is already found across the Greek mainland, the Aegean islands, Italy and Sicily, and no fewer than 33 local versions can be told apart. Early pieces include the Dipylon vase from Athens of about 740 BCE and the cup of Nestor from Pithekoussai in Italy of about 750 to 700 BCE. Most early inscriptions are private and everyday in character. The direction of writing was not yet fixed: it ran right to left, left to right, or back and forth.
Who pushed back
The conventional date has been challenged. Willemijn Waal has argued that the alphabet reached the Aegean around the eleventh century BCE, during the so-called Dark Age, and that the first texts were written on wood, leather or papyrus that did not survive. Her evidence is that early Greek writing habits, such as unfixed direction, varied letter forms and dividers made of dots or strokes, resemble West Semitic inscriptions from before about 1050 BCE and not the standardized Phoenician of the ninth century.
What lasted
The Ancient Near East Today, published by the American Society of Overseas Research, describes the Greek alphabet as often considered the first true alphabet, from which all modern alphabets are derived. The script has stayed in use for Greek without a break, and its history, in the words of one account, continues to the present day.
