The Textualization Of The Greek Alphabet

This book argues that when the Greeks first began to use the alphabet, they viewed themselves as participants in a performance phenomenon.

This book argues that when the Greeks first began to use the alphabet, they viewed themselves as participants in a performance phenomenon.

Written by some of the foremost typographic and book history scholars in the world such as Hermann Zapf, Nicolas Barker, and Nicolas Panayotakis, these essays bring to life the rich history and development of the Greek letter form: its role in the history of the printed word and civilization, the urgent need for quality modern fonts, and the challenges faced by the current and future realm of Greek type design. In response to these challenges, the Greek Font Society formed in 1992 to promote and design quality Greek fonts for printing and use on the computer screen. The Society also gathered some of the most respected professionals, designers, and scholars at the first International Symposium on the Evolution of the Greek Alphabet and published the papers presented on these topics, now contained in this volume, Greek Letters.

A challenging and fascinating enquiry into the genesis of alphabetic writing.

The birth of the Greek alphabet marked a new horizon in the history of writing, as the vowelless Phoenician alphabet was borrowed and adapted to write vowels as well as consonants. Rather than creating a single unchanging new tradition, however, its earliest attestations show a very great degree of diversity, as areas of the Greek-speaking world established their own regional variants. This volume asks how, when, where, by whom and for what purposes Greek alphabetic writing developed. Anne Jeffery's Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (1961), re-issued with a valuable supplement in 1990, was an epoch-making contribution to the study of these issues. But much important new evidence has emerged even since 1987, and debate has continued energetically about all the central issues raised by Jeffery's book: the date at which the Phoenician script was taken over and adapted to write vowels with separate signs; the priority of Phrygia or Greece in that process; the question whether the adaptation happened once, and the resulting alphabet then spread outwards, or whether similar adaptations occurred independently in several paces; if the adaptation was a single event, the region where it occurred, and the explanation for the many divergences in local script; what the scripts tell us about the regional divisions of archaic Greece. There has also been a flourishing debate about the development and functions of literacy in archaic Greece. The contributors to this volume bring a range of perspectives to bear in revisiting Jeffery's legacy, including chapters which extend the scope beyond Jeffery, by considering the fortunes of the Greek alphabet in Etruria, in southern Italy, and on coins.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.