Greek Gods

Greek letters are among the few which have not changed much over the centuries. The ancient Greek letters and the modern Greek letters language has remained basically the same. However the early Greek texts, which have survived the ages, were written in the script called Linear B. The early form of Greek called Mycenaean was formed by the Linear B script. This era was known as the dark ages and after the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, this writing method disappeared with the era. The Linear B script appears to be related to Linear A, which was the script used to write the Minoan language. The language consists of both syllables and also logographic signs. The Greek letters resemble modern Japanese writing structure. The early script found was thought to be from the 1500 B. C. And 1200 B. C. Era.

The script of the ancient Greek letters was found by the archeologist Sir Arthur Evans. This finding was in the early part of the 20th century while doing some excavation in Crete and on the mainland of Greece. The writings was not fully deciphered until 1953 when Michael Ventris and John Chadwick worked together and determined the phonetic values of the Linear B signs. They uncovered the script which consisted mainly of syllabic signs, some logograms, a base 10 number system and short vertical lines which were used to separate the words. Many of the accounting records of the ancient Greeks were clay tablets with the Linear B script because they were lists of inventory items.

There are only 24 letters or emblems in the Greek alphabet instead of the 26 like the English have. These letters were: Alpha (A), Beta (v), Gamma (gh), Delta (th), Epsilon (e), Zeta (z), Eta (I), Theta (th), Iota (I), Kappa (Kk), Lambda (l), Mu (m), nu (n), Ksi (ks), Omnicron (o), Pi (p), Rho (rh), Sigma (s), Tau (t), Upsilon (yu), Chi (Xx) Phi (circle with line down through it), Psi (u with line down through it), and Omega (horseshoe shape and w).

There are many sounds present in other languages that are not present in the Greek language. Some of our very common sounds such as b, d, and g are not in the Greek alphabet. The difference in the Greek language and other languages may be the reason why the different translations of the ancient Greek mythologies were so different in some instances. Some of the names and the stories about the Greek gods and goddesses were very different depending on which translation you were reading.

In modern Greek the accent mark is put in the lowercase writing only and only over a vowel of the stressed syllable. One syllable words are not shown with the stress mark. Only one of the last three syllables of a word can be stressed.