The Greco-Iberian

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

is a direct adaptation of an Ionic variant of a

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

to the specifics of the

Iberian language The Iberian language was the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre- Migration Era (before about 375 AD). The ...

, thus this script is an alphabet and lacks the distinctive characteristic of the

paleohispanic scripts The Paleohispanic scripts are the writing systems created in the Iberian peninsula before the Latin alphabet became the main script. Most of them are unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic, despite having su ...

that present signs with syllabic value, for the

occlusive In phonetics, an occlusive, sometimes known as a stop, is a consonant sound produced by occluding (i.e. blocking) airflow in the vocal tract, but not necessarily in the nasal tract. The duration of the block is the ''occlusion'' of the consonan ...

s and signs with monophonemic value for the rest of

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

and

vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

Location of findings

The inscriptions that use the Greco-Iberian alphabet had been found mainly in

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in ...

and

Murcia Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...

and the direction of the writing is left to right, or sinistroverse. The number of known Greco-Iberian inscriptions is small: fewer than two dozen

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...

inscriptions and a dozen

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

plaques, among them the lead plaque from La Serreta (

Alcoy Alcoy ( ca-valencia, Alcoi) is an industrial and university city, region and municipality located in the Valencian Community, Spain. The Serpis river crosses the municipal boundary of Alcoy. The local authority reported a population of 61,135 res ...

) and the lead plaque from El Cigarralejo (Mula,

). The archaeological context of the Greco-Iberian inscriptions seems to concentrate in the 4th century BC, but the paleographic characteristics of the model indicate that the adaptation may date from the 5th century BC.

Typology

The Greco-Iberian alphabet contains 16 signs identical to Greek signs, except for the sign corresponding to the second

rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including , in the Latin script and , in the Cyrillic script. The ...

: five

, three

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

s (

labial The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to: * the lips ** In linguistics, a labial consonant ** In zoolog ...

, dental and

velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...

), but only two

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

occlusives (dental and velar), two

sibilants Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

, two

rhotics In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including , in the Latin script and , in the Cyrillic script. Th ...

, one

lateral Lateral is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Healthcare *Lateral (anatomy), an anatomical direction * Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle * Lateral release (surgery), a surgical procedure on the side of a kneecap Phonetics *Lateral co ...

, and only one

nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...

sign. To represent the second rhotic , rho gets an additional stroke. Eta is used instead of

epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was d ...

to represent /e/. The only letter not found in the modern variant of the Greek alphabet is

sampi Sampi (modern: ϡ; ancient shapes: , ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It was used as an addition to the classical 24-letter alphabet in some eastern Ionic dialects of ancient Greek in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, to denote some t ...

. The letter forms are

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

ic since the writing surface (ceramic, stone, lead) affords angular glyphs with straight lines.

Notes

Bibliography

* Gómez-Moreno, Manuel (1922): «De Epigrafia ibérica: el plomo de Alcoy», ''Revista de filología española'' 9, pp. 341–366. * Hoz, Javier de (1987): «La escritura greco-ibérica», ''Veleia'' 2–3, pp. 285–298. * Hoz, Javier de (1998): «Epigrafía griega de occidente y escritura greco-ibérica», ''Los griegos en España'', pp. 180–196. * Rodríguez Ramos, Jesús (2005): «Introducció a l’estudi de les inscripcions ibèriques», ''Revista de la Fundació Privada Catalana per l’Arqueologia ibèrica'', 1, pp. 13–144. * Untermann, Jürgen (1990): ''Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum. III Die iberischen Inschriften aus Spanien'', Wiesbaden. * Velaza, Javier (1996): ''Epigrafía y lengua ibéricas'', Barcelona.

External links

The Greek-Iberian writing- Jesús Rodríguez Ramos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greco-Iberian Alphabet Iberian writing Greek alphabet Spanish culture

Location of findings

Typology

See also

Notes

Bibliography

External links