Page "Alphabet" Paragraph 11

The script was spread by the Phoenicians, across the Mediterranean.

In Greece, the script was modified to add the vowels, giving rise to the ancestor of all alphabets in the West.

The indication of the vowels is the same way as the indication of the consonants, therefore it was the first true alphabet.

The Greeks took letters which did not represent sounds that existed in Greek, and changed them to represent the vowels.

The vowels are significant in the Greek language, and the syllabical Linear B script which was used by the Mycenaean Greeks from the 16th century BC had 87 symbols including 5 vowels.

In its early years, there were many variants of the Greek alphabet, a situation which caused many different alphabets to evolve from it.