Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer A Linguistic Interpretation of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and the Continuity of Ancient Greek Literacy

In this book, Woodard examines the origin of the Greek alphabet. Divergingfrom previous accounts, he places the advent of the alphabet at a point withinan unbroken continuum of Greek literacy beginning in the Mycenean era. Woodardargues that the creators of the Greek alphabet, or, more accurately, theadapters of the Phoenician consonantal script, were scribes accustomed towriting Greek with the syllabic script of Cyprus. Certain characteristicfeatures of Cypriot script, features which arose from the idiosyncratic Cypriotstrategy for representing consonant sequences and from the intersection of thisstrategy with elements of Cypriot Greek phonology, were transferred to the newalphabetic script. Proposing this Cypriot origin of the alphabet at the hands ofpreviously literate adapters clears up various problems of the alphabet, such asthe Greek use of the Phoenician sibilant letters. The alphabet, though rejectedby the post-Bronze Age "Mycenaen" culture of Cyprus, was exported west to theAegean, where it gained a foothold among a then illiterate Greek people emergingfrom the Dark Age.