# Greek Aphabets phi, chi, psi, and omega



## CitizenEmpty

It is proved that Greek Alphabets in its modern form came from Phoenician Abjads. For example, rho is quite similar to the Phoenician resh. But what about phi (Φ), chi (Χ), psi (Ψ), and omega (Ω)? Here is what I think.

Phi (Φ) was possibly a simplified cursive ligature of qoppa and samekh.
Chi (Χ) was possibly a modification of qoppa
Psi (Ψ) was possibly a simplified cursive ligature of qoppa and pi (/p/).
Omega (Ω) was possibly a modification of omicron.

Any ideas?


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## ahvalj

The Greek alphabet may have perfectly been borrowed through the mediation of certian Anatolian nations, like Lydians, Carians, etc. (see their respective alphabets), so the origin of these additional letters may lie outside the proper Greek tradition. Just a speculation, of course. Overall, it has been pointed many times that we ascribe many cultural inventions to Greeks simply because we have learnt them from the Greeks, whereas between the 15th and 5th centuries B.C. Greeks were part of a larger cultural area stretching to both sides of the Ionian sea. Carians, for example, had polises, like Greeks.


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## rur1920

Sorry, you mean the Aegean Sea? Thank you.


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## ahvalj

Yes, of course: I was thinking about Ionian colonies in Anatolia when writing that.


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## apmoy70

Based on my personal research, Φ is indeed a modified qoppa. 
X is either derived from Θ which was originally written as http://s30.postimg.org/sz6pwg4a5/image.jpg, or from K (the latter hypothesis is based on the Attic alphabet, where K was the sound of voiceless velar stop [k], and X was its aspirated counterpart [kʰ]).  
Ψ is believed to be a modification of Y, a remnant of this conviction is found often in Byzantine calligraphy, miniscule ψ was written as y.
Ω is an Ionic invention, earliest Greek alphabets ended on Ψ.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> The Greek alphabet may have perfectly been borrowed through the mediation of certian Anatolian nations, like Lydians, Carians, etc. (see their respective alphabets), so the origin of these additional letters may lie outside the proper Greek tradition. Just a speculation, of course. Overall, it has been pointed many times that we ascribe many cultural inventions to Greeks simply because we have learnt them from the Greeks, whereas between the 15th and 5th centuries B.C. Greeks were part of a larger cultural area stretching to both sides of the Ionian sea. Carians, for example, had polises, like Greeks.


Possible. The cultural contact was indeed quite strong. Many of the mythological stories we regard so uniquely Greek today were in fact Anatolian, e.g. the story of Bellerophon and the Chimera is Lycian.

On the other hand, _Chi _(in western Alphabets letter shape like eastern _Psi_) and _Phi _address a specifically Greek phonological issue (three rather then two series of stops: voiced - unvoiced unaspirated - aspirated) that is not usually found in Anatolian languages. The separation of small and large _o_ (_o-micron_ an _o-mega_) is, as far as I know a relatively late and specifically Ionic development.

PS: Post crossed with Apmoy.


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## CitizenEmpty

Interesting insights.


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## sotos

CitizenEmpty said:


> Omega (Ω) was possibly a modification of omicron.



Note necessarily. In some ancient inscriptions Ω is like W.


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## berndf

sotos said:


> Note necessarily. In some ancient inscriptions Ω is like W.


I guess you mean the shape that eventually gave rise to the modern lower case ω. This shape is younger than Ω.


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## sotos

In my Greek encyclopedia I found that the Χ, Ψ and Ω  first appeared in the Ionian alphabet and later (5th c. BC) were adopted by other gr. alphabets. The 6th c. BC omega was looking like the modern ω.   Interestingly, the Linear B phthogue "ha" is  a cross inside a circle, i.e. has some similarity with X. 
As for the "proof" that the alphabet is of phoenician origin, we could wait some more time for the final proof. Only 10 years ago we learned that the early Philistines ("people of the sea")  had a writing system of cypro-minoan origin for their non-semitic language (Cross & Stager, 2006). One of those symbols  is exactly a capital A.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/13/science/phil.3.600.jpg


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## berndf

The Phoenician origin of the Greek alphabet as a whole can hardly be doubted. But the origin of the additional letters after tau is a different matter (except for ypsilon).


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## CitizenEmpty

It seems that all the best sources on the origin of Greek alphabets are in Greek. Obviously. But this only triggers my curiosity even more.


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## naf104230

berndf said:


> The Phoenician origin of the Greek alphabet as a whole can hardly be doubted. But the origin of the additional letters after tau is a different matter (except for ypsilon).


Actually, omega is known to be derived from omicron, and phi is generally believed to be derived from qoppa, a Greek letter derived from the Phoenician letter Qoph, which gave rise to the letter Q. Chi and psi are the only ones whose origins are unknown though some people believe that psi might be derived from upsilon, which is derived from the Phoenician letter Waw the same as F, as the shape is similar, and chi, the ancestor of the letter X, might be derived from the Phoenician letter Taw which looks like an x.


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## sotos

apmoy70 said:


> Ψ is believed to be a modification of Y, a remnant of this conviction is found often in Byzantine calligraphy, miniscule ψ was written as y.


1) The shape of byzantine calligraphics can be completely irrelevant to the original shape of the letters. See the byzantine (*) calligraphic small π.
2) Can you indicate a byzantine manuscript where the calligraphic Y looks like the latin y?

Deriving Ψ from koppa, is a pure orientalism.

(*) and not only. When I was young we used to write the π byzantine style.


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## berndf

sotos said:


> Deriving Ψ from koppa, is a pure orientalism.


What exactly do you mean by "orientalism" and what would be wrong with it given we are discussing how the Greek alphabet developed out of an "oriental", the Phonetician, abjad?


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## sotos

Most of the greek letters may originate from the phoenician, but this doesn't mean that some are not locally made or "recycled". for example, look how the Linear B "re" looks like Ψ, and how qa looks like koppa. In 19th century, the Protestant scientists tended to believe that everything originated from the "East", because the Bible says so.


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## berndf

The ancient Greek Koppa is quite clearly the Phoenician Qop. I see no reason to doubt this. And since Ψ represented /kʰ/ in the Western alphabet, the relationship is not entirely implausible, although it ought to be the other way round as the Semitic Qop is unaspirated and Kap is aspirated. But well.


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## sotos

This paper says that X, Φ, Ψ have no Phoenician model and are Greek creation.
Powell, Barry B. “The Origin of the Puzzling Supplementals φ χ ψ.” _Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-)_, vol. 117, 1987, pp. 1–20. _JSTOR_, www.jstor.org/stable/283956.
I don't see why this is surprising, since some Greeks (leaving aside the fact that "Phoenicians" were not a particular tribe or culture, but various Levantines, including Greeks in Palestine and Cyprus) were innovative enough to formulate the rest of the alphabet.
Finally, I see no consensus on the  original meaning of (presumably semitic) symbol qoppa, and none seems to consider that looks like and sounds like the Greek "kOpe" (=paddle).


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## berndf

No, there is indeed no consensus. That is why textbooks say the origin is "uncertain". I am just surprised about your outright rejection of one of the most prominent hypotheses. To me Ψ being derived from Qop remains a possibility.


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