The Greek Alphabet

Most of us are familiar with one writing system. If you're reading this blog you're probably pretty comfortable with the English alphabet.
You might also be aware of a few characters from other languages like "ß" from German and "ñ" from Spanish.
English speakers tend to think of alphabets, but there are several different types of writing systems.
An alphabet uses letters that represent certain sounds, including vowel and consonant sounds.
A character in a syllabic alphabet represents a consonant with a designated vowel sound that can be changed with a diacritical mark.
An abjad is like an alphabet made up only of consonants. In certain circumstances the vowel sounds are indicated by special marks.
A syllabary uses symbols to represent whole syllables in a word.
Semanto-phonetic systems use symbols that have a certain meaning and represent a certain sound.
For more in depth information on these types of writing systems I recommend Omniglot.

As a starting point in learning different writing systems I'll try my hand at a brief lesson on Greek.
You're probably familiar with some Greek characters, particularly the capitals.
Some of these characters are used in our alphabet. Others we're familiar with because of their use by Greek organizations and math.

There are also small forms for all of the letters.

The chart above explains the basics, but there are a few things that need a bit more explaining.
Omicron is pronounced like the "O" in "not." Omega is pronounced like the "O" in "wrote."
Upsilon is pronounced like the double "O" in "food."
Chi isn't pronounced the "ch" in "channel." Instead it's pronounced like the "ch" in "psychic."
Sigma has two small forms. The "σ" is used in the middle of a word. The "ς" is used at the end of a word.
My experience is mostly with biblical Greek, and it is usually all lowercase. Learning the alphabet is just a matter of memorization.

If you're interested in picking up another alphabet I recommend Ryan Estrada's Korean lesson.

A few words on fonts

We are constantly surrounded by words. Billboards, T-shirts, bumper stickers, warning labels, street signs, marquees, logos, newspapers, fliers, instructions, maps and innumerable other things use words to communicate ideas both simple and complex.

Everywhere, at all times there are words vying for our attention.

Fonts help catch our attention. They can alter our mood or affect our attitude toward a message without us ever knowing.

Fonts can remind us of a certain product or place or put us in mind of a certain time period.

A few words in the right font can put us in mind of a Dr. Seuss book or the Star Wars movies.

Fonts also affect how credible we find a source to be.

A font like Baskerville or Helvetica conveys far more credibility than my chaotic scrawl or fonts like Chalkduster and Comic Sans.

Fonts can set the tone in simple ways we might never notice.

A variety of fonts available in Microsoft Word