WHEN THE GREEKS MET THE PHOENICIANS   When the Greeks met the Phoenicians they were certainly impressed by the incredible facility of the Semitic system of written communication. This system, invented in the time of the Patriarchs in the country they lived in, had brought a fundamental change in writing. Up till then, symbols of writing represented objects. But if one wants to have a symbol for each object and action, the number of signs needed for one word becomes enormous. People had begun to develop conventional signs for common syllables, found in more words.     INVENTING THE ALPHABET Interesting is that the Bible, the important book that deals with that period, never mentions this or other inventions, but just speaks about them matter-of-factly as they are there. Clearly the aim of the holy texts was not to explain the technological development of society.   Anyhow somebody, we will never know precisely who, had the brillant thought that the number of different sounds in human speaking is infinitely inferior to the number of objects and actions one needs or wants to communicate about in writing. So he decided to select a number of existing symbols of objects, and to use each of them to respresent a sound in speaking. This meant the creation of the "alephbeth" which we now call "alphabet".   Rather naturally, each sign was to stand for the initial consonantial sound of the object it had been representing up till then. Thus the simplified design of a house, that was used to mean exactly "house", in Hebrew "bet", became the sign for "B", the letter "B".   The Semitic alphabet that is known as the result out of his work and that of his successors, counted 29 symbols or letters . Before long a new problem made itself felt : in alphabetic writing you may need a lot of symbols to write just the name of one object. The logical consequence has been to write faster by simplifying the original symbols. Therefore those 29 Semitic letters soon became much simpler, with the objects they once were meant to depict, no more very well recognizable. This was the version the Greeks made acquaintance with, perhaps about 800 years a.e.v..     ADOPTING AND ADAPTING As the Greeks wanted to adopt this convincing system of writing, they discovered that there were several letters they had no use for, as they stood for sounds that did not exist in Greek. And also that several sounds they had in Greek, had no symbol in the Semitic alphabet. So they made a number of adaptations.   A main problem was that the Semites had not made any symbols for vowels, but only for consonants.   The Hellenic solution was as brillant as one can imagine. It was decided to use some of those letters that indicated consonants not known in Greek, to represent vowels.   EXAMPLES  OF HEBREW CONSONANTS BECOMING GREEK VOWELS :   H E B R E W G R E E K Symbol Name Original meaning Sound Symbol Name Sound א aleph ox no sound, but the position of the oral cavity that precedes a vowel Α,α alpha A ח ghet wall gh Η,η èta ‘E ע ayin eye no full sound, but a non-voiced  "ng" or "r" Υ,υ upsilon Ü ש shin tooth sh Ω,ω omega O     ADOPTING THE NAMES. Generally the Greeks adopted the Semitic names of the letters, allthough those names had no meaning for them. Usually they added an "A" to the name . Perhaps to allow a fluid pronunciation or even because they felt a letter was to be considered feminine ?   ALEPH > ALPHA ; HETH > ‘ETA. and YOD > IOTA, though changing into vowels, were left with their names. They received a final A.   HE’ > E, became a vowel and did not need a final A added. Later it came to be called "E PSILON", today named in one word "EPSILON". This means "simple E" , as distuinguished from the diphtong "AI". that acquired the same pronunciation.   BETH > BETA , THET = THETA, KAF = KAPPA, QOPH = QOPPA received a final A.   GIMEL > GAMMA, DALETH > DELTA and LAMED > LAMBDA underwent a minor change, besides receiving a final A.   SAMEKH > SIGMA besides receiving a final A, also had a metathesis as "M KH" turned around into "G M".   WAW > WAU, TAW > TAU remained unchanged. Perhaps they did not receive an A as this was not felt necessary for reasons as above.   MEM > MÜ , NUN > NÜ , RESH > RHO lost their final doubling consonant and their vowels were adapted.   PE’ > PI only had a change in the vowel.   ZAYIN > ZETA had its name thoroughly changed, though maintaining the same sound.   AYIN > Y became a vowel. It was called Ü or also HÜ, as the Greeks felt some similarity between the to them unknown throaty sound of the vowel-stopping Semitic Ayin and the also throaty airflow of the H. Later this Greek letter became "Ü PSILON" > "ÜPSILON" or "Simple Ü " as distinguished from the diphtong "OI" that acquired a similar sound.   SHIN > O became a vowel, and was given the name O MEGA > OMEGA , "Great O", as distinguished from the "Omikron:   The following group : OMIKRON (little O ), KSI, sounding KS or X PHI, sounding PH or F KHI, sounding GH or KH PSI, sounding PS   were new letters, created by the Greeks to satisfy their needs. The symbols for Phi and Khi and perhaps also Psi , were based on those for Pi and Kappa .     H E B R E W G R E E K SIGN NAME MEANING SOUND SOUND NAME SIGN א ALEPH BOVINE OPENING FOR VOWEL Α ALPHA A ב BET HOUSE B Β BETA Β ג GIMEL CAMEL G G GAMMA Γ ד DALETH DOOR D D DELTA Δ ה HE N/A H E EPSILON Ε ו WAW HOOK W W WAU * Ϝ ז ZAYIN WEAPON Z Z ZETA Ζ ח GHET WALL GH ‘E ‘ETA Η ט THET N/A TH TH THETA Θ י YOD HAND Y I IOTA Ι כ KAPH HANDPALM K K KAPPA Κ ל LAMED GOAD L L LAMBDA Λ מ MEM WATER M M MÜ Μ נ NUN FISH N N NÜ Ν ס SAMEKH FISH S S SIGMA Σ ע AYIN EYE SOUNDSTOP FOR VOWEL Ü ÜPSILON Υ פ PE MOUTH P P PI Π צ TSADI FISHHOOK TS ק QOPH EYE (needle) Q Q QOPPA * ϙ ר RESH HEAD R R RHO Ρ ש SHIN TOOTH SH O OMEGA ω,Ω ת TAW SIGN T T TAU Τ O OMIKRON Ο KS KSI Ξ PH PHI Φ KH KHI Χ PS PSI Ψ 22 number of Hebrew signs number of Greek signs 26   Hebrew consonants changed into or used as vowels in Greek             :          6 New letters created in Greek                                                                 :          5 Hebrew letter-names used or adapted by Greek                                  :        18 Letters from Hebrew, not used in Greek                                               :          1 Letters from Hebrew, later abolished                                                    :          2 Original Greek names for letters                                                           :          8