The Greek Alphabet: Hellenic Invention or Phoenician Invasion?
05 / 04 / 2009
By: George C. Chryssis: It is safe to say that the Greeks invented what has been credited to them, and their contributions to philosophy, philology, mathematics, history, democracy, architecture and the arts, are well documented.
The question whether the Greek alphabet is an invention of the Hellenes, or it is a modified import of the Phoenician alphabet, has long been debated by linguists, scholars and historians alike.
The web site “writingsystems.com” states that “although Greek has traditionally been considered to be the mother of alphabets, the first to represent vowels as well as consonants, scholars are now divided on whether Greek was in fact the ancestor of all others or whether some [letters] came from Phoenician in other ways.”
In addition, in the book “The World of the Bible” the author, Roberta Harris, writes that “to the Greeks also belongs the credit for the invention of the vowel system… when the Greeks founded colonies in Italy, the alphabet was taken up by the peoples there… and has come down to us via the Romans…”
This article is based on extensive (but, by no means exhaustive) research that the author has done on the subject, in an attempt to show that ancient, as well as recent evidence, point to a favorable conclusion that the alphabet is indeed a Hellenic invention, albeit its final form, as we know it today, is the result of refinement and iterations of Hellenic writing systems through millennia of usage in the Aegean basin and the Levant.
The alleged Phoenician “invasion”
Several ancient Greek writers credit various Hellenes as the inventors of the alphabet, i.e. Prometheus, Palamedes, Linus and others, with the exception of Herodotus, who in his History he mentions the following: “Then those Phoenicians who had come with Cadmus, of whom were the Gephyrians, had lived in many other places, and imported in this land different teachings to the Greeks, and in addition letters (“grammata”), which, in my opinion, where unknown to the Greeks, initially those [letters] that they and all Phoenicians used; however, as time went by they [Phoenicians] changed their language and the type [shape] of the letters.” (Book V, 58)
This vexed passage is the heart of a long lasting and continuing debate regarding the origin of the Greek alphabet, since it has been taken at “gospel value” by many to mean that the Greeks “borrowed”, at least some, of their letters from the Phoenicians. However, an increasing number of scholars and researchers argue, with validity, that the Herodotus passage has been misunderstood and misinterpreted, if not taken out of context.
Referring to the Greek original text (quoted in the parentheses below), let us analyze the passage to extract its meaning the way Herodotus, most likely, meant it to read.
First, we notice that Herodotus makes a very important and significant disclaimer in this paragraph: he tells us that what he writes is a “personal opinion” (“os emoi dokeei”), not a widely accepted fact or a definitive statement.
Prior to this, Herodotus also makes a more general disclaimer that “his opinion” was formed not by facts, research or scientific knowledge, but rather it was based on “taking information from others” (“anapynthanomenos”).
“If we look closely in what Herodotus himself says [in his History],” writes Mary Lefkowitz in her book “Not Out Of Africa”, “he makes it clear that he is putting forward his own interpretations and conjectures about what he saw and was told by native informants.” (p. 62)
This is not an uncommon practice for Herodotus. To wit, Professor Perez Zagorin in his book “Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader” writes that Herodotus “in dealing with sources of information, his attitude was neither consistently critical nor generally credulous, but somewhere in between… To his readers he declares that it is his duty to report all that is said, but not obliged to believe it… His work is full of the most varied facts, speeches, stories and digressions for whose truth it is impossible to vouch… Very likely [Thucydides] placed Herodotus among the class of writers who, he said, take little trouble in the search for the truth and readily…accept whatever comes first hand.” (p.16)
This is not to say that Herodotus is not a great historian, or that his writings are not important. On the contrary, his History is a remarkable book based on events that he encountered, but also on stories and folklore that he heard. Regarding his passage about the Greek alphabet he failed to establish a clear distinction between facts and generalizations and, in contrast to Thucydides, the historical evidence (“tekmerion”) in his narrative is missing, rendering his conjecture suspect.
To be fair, despite his controversial account, Herodotus actually makes it clear that the Greeks already had letters of their own at the time of the Phoenicians arrival to Greece and is careful to point-out that the Phoenicians introduced only a few letters (“eisegagon oliga”) that where hitherto unknown to the Greeks (“ouk eonta prin Ellesi”). Surely, the most important and by far the most critical statement that Herodotus makes in his passage is the one confirming that in time the Phoenicians “changed their language and the type (or shape) of their letters” (“ama ti foni metevallon kai ton rythmon ton grammaton”). In other words, the Phoenicians assimilated and eventually spoke Greek and wrote in Greek letters!
However, what is considered the “bone of contention” in this entire debate is Herodotus’s subsequent paragraph. It reads in (translation) as follows: “At that period, most of the Greeks living around the [Aegean] region were Ionians, who were taught these letters by the Phoenicians, and adopted them with few alterations for their own use, and using them they were saying, that the right thing to do was to call them Phoenician, since the Phoenicians brought them to Greece.”
This passage is indeed both paradoxical and suspicious, because if we accept the notion that the Ionian Greeks “adopted and used some” Phoenician letters (“metarythmisantes sfeon oliga ehreonto”), this would be a striking contradiction to the former paragraph’s strong and assertive statement that the Phoenicians where the adopters, not the Greeks! Is Herodotus confused and uses “bifurcated logic” here, or is something else happening? Let’s examine the possibilities.
As difficult as it is to translate a passage from ancient Greek without altering its meaning, keep in mind that the ancient Greek writings can (and will) take an entirely different meaning by repositioning a comma, or by observing the proper gender, or even by inserting a word that the author has omitted.
Consider the following famous Delphic oracle, given by Pythia to an ancient Greek soldier leaving for war: “Thou shall go and thou shall return not thou shall die in war” (“Exeis afexeis ou en polemo thnexeis”). As an exercise to the reader, notice how the meaning of the sentence changes completely, first by placing the comma before the word “not” and then after it!
Furthermore, consider the word “Egypt” (Aigyptos); its feminine form (e Aigyptos) refers to the country Egypt, but its male form (o Aigyptos) refers to the mythical hero Egyptus, a forefather of the Greeks, not connected with Egypt.
Fascinating indeed, but after all, this is the beauty and power of the Greek language and also its mystique and challenge to the user, reader, as well as the translator! Hence, modern translators and interpreters, who do not have either the analytical skills or good command of the language, not only make erroneous translations and interpretations, but unfortunately, these errors perpetuate and eventually amplify the problem.
05 / 04 / 2009 | Tags: Alphabet, Ancient Greece, Europe, Hellas Greece, Hellenes, Herodotus, Language, Minoans, PAIDEIA, writing |
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