13 The creation of new vowel letters in early Greek alphabetic writing
When the five matres became vowel letters, what were their sound values in the scripts? If one were to disregard vowel length, <A>, <I>, and <Y> would each represent one vowel quality in all Greek regions while <E> and <O> would each represent two vowel qualities in many Greek regions. In regions where the dialect had the following seven vowel qualities /a, i, u, e, o, ɛ, ɔ/, <E> and <O> would each represent two vowel qualities: <E> would represent both /e/ and /ɛ/, and <O> both /o/ and /ɔ/.
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