This treatise is about how Greek segmental writing evolved from the Phoenician way of writing Greek names with both Phoenician signs and matres lectionis. A Phoenician sign basically represents several CV syllables with the same onset but different rhymes. When used to write a foreign name, such a sign requires a mater with the appropriate rhyme to indicate its sound value. Greek alphabetic writing began, we believe, when the Phoenicians used about twenty Phoenician signs and three matres to record Greek names. The Greeks later adopted this method of writing Greek names to write Greek. This method of writing Greek doubtless had flaws. The most noticeable was the inadequate number of matres. As a Phoenician sign plus a mater could represent as many as nine Greek syllables, the Greeks sometimes had difficulty guessing at the correct reading of some words. By creating two more matres subsequently, not only could the Greeks write their language more accurately, but they also unintentionally reduced the load of two of the three traditional matres in their role of syllable indicator. With five matres, the Greeks could now use a Phoenician sign plus a mater to represent basically only one syllable. As three or even four of the five matres were spoken as V syllables in Greek, the Greeks would come to perceive each of these matres as a letter representing the rear part of the syllable. As the mater was so perceived, the preceding Phoenician sign would then come to be perceived as representing the front part of the syllable. When the Phoenician sign and the mater came to be perceived as letters representing the front and rear parts, or segments, of a syllable, Greek segmental writing was born.
(Revised on 3 April 2018)
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