Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (1991)

303 Pages·2012·9.98 MB·English

by  Barry B. Powell

Homer and the
origin of the
Greek alphabet
Barry B. Powell
Professor of Classics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Duilding, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY iOOll-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oaklcigh, Melbourne 316ο, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1991
First published 1991
Printed in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
British Library cataloguing in publication data
Powell, Barry B.
Homer and the origin of the Greek alphabet.
1. Greek language. Alphabets. Influence of Homer
I. Title
48Γ.Ι
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Powell, Barry B.
Homer and the origin of the Greek alphabet/Barry 13. Powell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBNO 521 37157 0
I. Homer - language. 2. Greek language - Alphabet. I. Title
PA4177.A48P69 1990
883'.dl-OC20 89-22186 CIP
ISBNO 521 37157 0 hardback
JOE FONTENROSE
in memoriam

We must always reckon in the case of all great cultural
achievements with the decisive intervention of men of genius
who were able either to break away from sacred tradition or to
transfer into practical form something on which others could
only speculate. Unfortunately, we do not know any of the
geniuses who were responsible for the most important reforms
in the history of writing. (I. J. Gelb, 1963: 199)
Among the facts of early Greek history the rise of the Greek
Epic, and in particular of the /AW, has a place of evident
importance. But to the historian's question "how exactly did
it happen?" no quite confident answer has yet been given.
(Η. Τ. Wade-Gery, 1952: 1)
...once I saw a man from Plav who had such interest to learn·
a song when some singer sang it that he wrote it down and
took it and read it to them in Plav. (Salih Ugljanin, a Yugoslav
guslar, in Parry-Lord-Bynum, eds., 1953: 383)

CONTENTS
List of figures
List of tables
Ackno\ vledgemen ts
Abbreviations
A note on terms and phonetic transcriptions
Chronological charts
Maps
Foreword: Why was the Greek alphabet invented?
ι Review of criticism: What we know about the origin of
Greek alphabet
Phoenician origins
Single introduction by a single man
The place of adaptation
The date of transmission
The moment of transmission
The names of the signs
The sounds of the signs
The vowels
The problem of the sibilants
The problem of the supplemental φ χ ψ
The adapter's system
Summary and conclusions
2 Argument from the history of writing: How writing
worked before the Greek alphabet
Elements in the art of writing
Xll CONTENTS
How logo-syllabic writing works: Egyptian hieroglyphic 76
How syllabic writing works: the Cypriote syllabary 89
How syllabic writing works: Phoenician 101
Summary and conclusions 105
3 Argument from the material remains: Greek inscriptions
from the beginning to c. 650 B.C. 119
The lack of semantic devices in early Greek writing 119
I. "Short" Greek inscriptions from the beginning to
C. 650 B.C., 123
it. "Long" Greek inscriptions from the beginning to
c. 650 B.C. 158
Conclusions 181
4 Argument from coincidence: Dating Greece's earliest poet 187
t. What dates does archaeology give for objects, practices, and
social realities mentioned in Homer? 190
II. Is there anything about the language of the Iliad and the
Odyssey that can be dated? 207
III. What are the earliest outside references to Homer? 208
iv. Homer's date in ancient tradition 217
Conclusions: the date of Homer 219
5 Conclusions from probability: how the ///Wand Odyssey
were written down 221
Writing and traditional song in Homer's day 221
Conclusions 231
APPENDIX 1: Gelb's theory of the syllabic nature of West
Semitic writing 238
APPENDIX 11: Homeric references in poets of the seventh century 246
Definitions 249
Bibliography 254
Index 277
FIGURES
ι An eighteenth-century child's primer
2 The expected derivation of Greek sibilants from Phoenician
3 The actual derivation of Greek sibilants from Phoenician
4 Jcffery's reconstruction of the shuffle of the sibilants
5 Historical stemma of φ χ ψ
6 The phonetic development of φ χ ψ
7 Hypothetical reconstruction of a Homeric text in the adapter's
hand
8 Drawing of the first side of the Idalion tablet
9 The first sentence of the Idalion inscription rewritten from left to
right, with interlinear transliteration
ίο Cypriote and alphabetic writing compared
11 From the Yehomilk inscription (sixth-fourth centuries B.C.)