How Are the Ancient Greek and Hebrew Alphabets Related?

Ancient seal from seventh period BCE with Hebrew writing. Credit: Wikipedia Commons, nationalist domain

The Greek alphabet has a agelong and fascinating history. In fact, its root goes close backmost to 1 of the precise earliest penning systems successful each of quality civilization, Egyptian hieroglyphs. Part of that fascinating practice involves a astonishing transportation to the Ancient Hebrew alphabet. What was this connection, and what were the similarities and differences betwixt the Greek and Hebrew alphabets?

The root of the Greek and Hebrew alphabets

One cardinal constituent to enactment is that the Greek and Hebrew alphabets stock an origin. According to Greek mythology, a Greek prince of Phoenicia named Cadmus brought the Phoenician publication to Greece. There, the Greeks adopted it into what past became the Greek alphabet. Modern archaeology has confirmed this basal story, and this seems to person occurred aft 900 BCE.

The Hebrew publication existed broadside by broadside with the Phoenician publication successful the onshore of Canaan for galore centuries. They were fundamentally the aforesaid alphabet but with insignificant determination variations. Both the Phoenician and Hebrew publication evolved straight from the Proto-Sinaitic Script of the Middle Bronze Age and ne'er experienced immoderate large separation from each other.

Similarities betwixt the Greek and Hebrew alphabets

The Modern Greek and Hebrew alphabets carnivore precise small similarity to each other. However, that is conscionable due to the fact that they person some evolved considerably from their past forms. The Greek alphabet contiguous has a precise antithetic quality to the signifier it had successful the earliest known inscriptions.

Likewise, the Hebrew alphabet changed considerably aft the Jews were exiles successful Babylon for seventy years from the late-seventh to mid-sixth centuries BCE. However, erstwhile we look astatine the precise earliest Greek inscriptions and comparison them to Hebrew inscriptions from the aforesaid era, their quality is astir identical.

In summation to the quality of the letters, the mode successful which the 2 languages were written was similar. Unlike Modern Greek, the aboriginal Ancient Greek alphabet was written close to left known arsenic «επί τα λαιά» (Epi ta Laia). This is due to the fact that that is however the Phoenician (and Hebrew) scripts were written. Therefore, successful some benignant and the absorption of writing, the Ancient Greek and Hebrew alphabets were astir identical.

Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon inscription of the Gortyn code. A ineligible codification that was the codification of the civilian instrumentality of the Ancient Greek city-state of Gortyn successful confederate Crete successful Greece. The inscription has been dated to the archetypal fractional of the 5th period BCE. Credit: Public Domain

However, the Greek alphabet did not proceed being written successful the aforesaid absorption arsenic the Hebrew publication forever. Quite aboriginal connected successful its history, the Greeks changed however they utilized the alphabet. Rather than consistently penning from close to left, they developed a signifier of penning known arsenic boustrophedon.

The connection ‘boustrophedon’ comes from the words ‘bous’ (meaning ‘ox’) and ‘strophe’ (meaning ‘turn’) on with the suffix ‘don’ (meaning ‘in the mode of’). The connection refers to the mode of an ox turning, that is, portion it plows a field.

In this signifier of writing, the writer would spell from close to left, and past erstwhile they started the adjacent line, they would spell from near to right. Essentially, they would spell backmost connected themselves underneath each successive line. In this way, it was similar the way taken by an ox erstwhile plowing a field.

Differences betwixt the Greek and Hebrew alphabets

Unlike Ancient Greek, the Ancient Hebrews ne'er utilized a boustrophedon signifier of penning arsenic standard, though determination mightiness beryllium a fewer isolated examples. Over time, by astir 500 BCE, the Ancient Greeks started penning their alphabet astir exclusively near to right, arsenic we bash today. This was frankincense a large quality betwixt the 2 penning systems.

Another large quality betwixt the Ancient Greek and Hebrew alphabets is the information that Greek included vowels, whereas the Hebrew alphabet lone had consonants. With the Hebrew alphabet, the scholar would proviso the indispensable vowels based connected his ain cognition of the word. There were besides a fewer adjuvant rules that determined wherever a vowel was oregon was not permissible.

When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, they modified it to see vowels. This made it a batch easier and overmuch much versatile.