id: "Grek"
name: "Greek"
family: "European"
summary: "Greek (<span class=\'autonym\'>Ελληνικά</span>) is a European bicameral alphabet, written left-to-right (11 million users). Used to write the Greek language since the 8th century BCE. Also used to write other languages like Urum, Albanian Tosk, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. Some symbols are also used in scientific notation. Derived from Phoenician. First “true alphabet”, with distinct letters for consonants and vowels. Standardized in the 4th century BCE by Eucleides. Has 24 letters. Some letter variants (sigma: σ/ς) have positional significance in the Greek language, other variants only differ in meaning in scientific notation (e.g. pi: π/ϖ). The Greek language used to be written in polytonic spelling, with three accents on vowels. In 1982, Greece introduced monotonic spelling with a single diacritic. Needs software support for complex text layout (shaping)."