| Description |
1 online resource (xiv, 287 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 268-278) and index. |
| Contents |
1. Introduction -- 2. The Syllabaries -- 3. Syllable-Dependent Approaches -- 4. Non-Syllable-Dependent Approaches -- 5. The Hierarchy of Orthographic Strength -- 6. The Alphabet -- 7. Cyprus and Beyond -- 8. Conclusions -- Phonetic Glossary. |
| Access |
Use copy Restrictions unspecified MiAaHDL |
| Summary |
Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer examines the origin of the Greek alphabet. Departing from previous accounts, Roger Woodard places the advent of the alphabet within an unbroken continuum of Greek literacy beginning in the Mycenaean era. He argues that the creators of the Greek alphabet, who adapted the Phoenician consonantal script, were scribes accustomed to writing Greek with the syllabic script of Cyprus. |
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Certain characteristic features of the Cypriot script - for example, its strategy for representing consonant sequences and elements of Cypriot Greek phonology - were transferred to the new alphabetic script. Proposing a Cypriot origin of the alphabet at the hands of previously literate adapters brings clarity to various problems of the alphabet, such as the Greek use of the Phoenician sibilant letters. The alphabet, rejected by the post-Bronze Age "Mycenaean" culture of Cyprus, was exported west to the Aegean, where it gained a foothold among a then illiterate Greek people emerging from the Dark Age. Woodard's study, a combination of philological and epigraphical investigation with linguistic theory, should be of interest to both scholars and students of classics, linguistics, and Near Eastern studies. |
| Reproduction |
Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010. MiAaHDL |
| System Details |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
| Processing Action |
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve MiAaHDL |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Greek language -- Alphabet.
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Greek language -- Alphabet. |
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Written communication -- Greece -- History.
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Written communication. |
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Greece. |
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History. |
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Language and culture -- Greece -- History.
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Language and culture. |
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Greek language -- Written Greek.
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Greek language -- Written Greek. |
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Literacy -- Greece -- History.
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Literacy. |
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Greek language -- Writing.
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Greek language -- Writing. |
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Greek language. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
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History.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Woodard, Roger D. Greek writing from Knossos to Homer. New York : Oxford University Press, 1997 0195105206 (DLC) 96007447 (OCoLC)34412866 |
| ISBN |
0585381445 (electronic book) |
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9780585381442 (electronic book) |
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0195105206 (Cloth) |
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9780195105209 |
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