For example, alpha comes for the Canaanite aleph (ox) and beta from beth (house). The original Canaanite meanings of the letter names was lost when the alphabet was adapted for Greek. It was developed from the Canaanite/Phoenician alphabet and the order and names of the letters are derived from Phoenician. The Greek alphabet has been in continuous use since about 750 BC. On Crete another script, known as the Cypriot syllabary, was used to write the local variety of Greek between about 1200 and 300 BC. This variety of Greek is known as Mycenaean. Greek was first written in Mycenae with a script known as Linear B, which was used between about 15 BC. Tower of Babel in Modern Greek | Ancient Greek.Status: official language of Greece, an official language of Cyprus, officially recognized as a minority language in parts of Italy, and in Albania, Armenia, Romania and Ukraine.Writing systems: Linear B, Cypriot syllabary, Greek alphabet.Spoken in: Greece, Albania, Cyprus, and a number of other countries.Language family: Indo-European, Hellenic.
