Cypriot syllabary

Cypriot syllabary, system of writing used on the island of Cyprus, chiefly from the 6th to the 3rd century bc. The syllabary consists of 56 signs, each of which represents a different syllable. Most inscriptions written with this syllabary are in the Greek language, although the syllabary was originally designed for writing the earlier non-Greek language of Cyprus. The classical Cypriot syllabary is apparently a late development of the still undeciphered Cypro-Minoan script (containing 63 syllabic symbols), which was found on a number of clay tablets from Cyprus and Syria and dates from about 1500 to about 1100 bc. The Cypro-Minoan script in turn is thought to be a distant offshoot of the early Cretan scripts (Linear A and Linear B).