"Ancient Greek Alphabet" Decorative Slate

The Greek writing system was developed in Greece about 1000 BCE. It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all modern European alphabets.

Before the 5th century BCE the Greek alphabet could be divided into two principal branches: the Ionic (eastern) and the Chalcidian (western). Differences between the two branches were minor. The Chalcidian alphabet probably gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet of Italy in the 8th century BCE and hence indirectly to the other Italic alphabets, including the Latin alphabet, which is now used for most European languages. In 403 BCE, however, Athens officially adopted the Ionic alphabet as written in Miletus, and in the next 50 years almost all local Greek alphabets, including the Chalcidian, were replaced by the Ionic script, which thus became the Classical Greek alphabet.

The early Greek alphabet was written from right to left. This gradually gave way to the boustrophedon style, and after 500 BCE Greek was always written from left to right. The Classical alphabet had 24 letters, 7 of which were vowels, and consisted of capital letters, ideal for monuments and inscriptions. From it were derived three scripts better suited to handwriting: uncial, which was essentially the Classical capitals adapted to writing with pen on paper and similar to hand printing, and cursive and minuscule, which were running scripts similar to modern handwriting forms, with joined letters and considerable modification in letter shape. Uncial went out of use in the 9th century CE, and minuscule, which replaced it, developed into the modern Greek handwriting form.