The Greek alphabet

• collapse of the Mycenaean civilization (around 1200 BCE)
• writing disappeared from Greece (dark ages)
• late ninth to early eighth century BC a script based on the Phoenician syllabary was introduced, with unneeded consonant symbols being reused to represent the Greek vowels (=Greek Alphabet)

The Attic-Ionic dialect

• the most influential Greek dialect has been the one spoken in Athens, called Attic.
• Attic and Ionic—the form of the language spoken mainly in the Greek city states directly across the Aegean Sea from Athens—exerted significant influence on each other as the preferred forms of the language for oratory and philosophical prose, eventually producing a dialect now called Attic-Ionic.

The Greek Alphabet

Greek Alphabet-Classical Attic Pronunciation

Sample Text in Greek

Ancient Greek Inscription

<The Beginning Hellenistic Koine>