scriptsGreek

ScriptsGreek refers to the Greek script, the writing system used for the Greek language. It encompasses the Greek alphabet and its historical and modern typographic forms, as well as the diacritic and encoding conventions used to render Greek in print and on computers. Today it is used in Greece, Cyprus, and by Greek speakers worldwide, and historically it spread across regions influenced by Greek culture.

The Greek script originated in the 8th century BCE as an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet. It introduced distinct vowel signs and modified several consonants, enabling true reading of Greek syllables. Over time regional variants appeared, notably Ionic and Attic forms, and later standardized epigraphic majuscule scripts for inscriptions. The development of the minuscule script in the early medieval period produced later lowercase forms that became common in manuscripts and printed books.

The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, arranged in the conventional order from alpha to omega. It includes seven vowel letters and seventeen consonants. In earlier periods some letters, such as digamma, koppa, and sampi, were used for numerals or as variants but were not retained as standard alphabetic characters in later usage.

Orthography has evolved from polytonic to monotonic systems. Classical and post-classical Greek used polytonic diacritics, including multiple breathing and accent marks to indicate pitch and syllable stress. Modern Greek predominantly uses monotonic diacritics, with simplified punctuation and a reduced set of diacritical signs.

In digital text, Greek is encoded in Unicode primarily within the Basic Greek block (U+0370–U+03FF), with additional polytonic signs and historic letters in the Greek Extended blocks (notably U+1F00–U+1FFF) and related combining marks.

See also: Greek alphabet, Polytonic Greek, Monotonic Greek, Unicode.