This article is about the geographic history of the Latin script. For the typographic and orthographic history of the Latin script, see history of the Latin script. For the history of the Latin language, see history of Latin.
The spread of the Latin script has a long history, from its archaic beginnings in Latium to its rise as the dominant writing system in modernity. The ancestors of Latin letters are found in the Phoenician, Greek, and Etruscan alphabets. As the Roman Empire expanded in classical antiquity, the Latin script and language spread along with its conquests, and remained in use in Italy, Iberia, and Western Europe after the Western Roman Empire's disappearance. During the early and high Middle Ages, the script was spread by Christian missionaries and rulers, replacing the indigenous writing systems of Central Europe, Northern Europe, and the British Isles.
In the Age of Discovery, the first wave of European colonization saw the adoption of Latin alphabets primarily in the Americas and Australia, whereas sub-Saharan Africa, maritime Southeast Asia, and the Pacific were Latinised in the period of New Imperialism. Realizing that Latin was now the most widely used script on Earth, the Bolsheviks made efforts to develop and establish Latin alphabets for all languages in the lands they controlled in Eastern Europe, North and Central Asia. However, after the Soviet Union's first three decades, these were gradually abandoned in the 1930s in favour of Cyrillic. Some post-Soviet Turkic-majority states decided to reintroduce the Latin script in the 1990s, following the 1928 example of Turkey. In the early 21st century, non-Latin writing systems were only still prevalent in most parts of the Middle East and North Africa and the post-Soviet states, most countries in Asia, and some Balkan countries.
and 26 Related for: Spread of the Latin script information
to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on theLatinscript, which is the basic set of letters common to the various alphabets...
TheLatinscript is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the standard scriptofthe English language and is often referred...
TheLatinscript, also known as the Roman script, and technically Latin writing system, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters ofthe classical...
Insular script is a medieval script system originating from Ireland that spread to England and continental Europe under the influence of Irish Christianity...
became the third official scriptofthe European Union, following theLatin and Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th...
15924 Latinscript List of ISO transliterations Orthographic transcription Phonemic orthography Phonetic transcription Romanization SpreadoftheLatin script...
system in the world (after theLatinscript), the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it, and the third-most...
marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of letters. The Glagolitic script (/ˌɡlæɡəˈlɪtɪk/, ⰃⰎⰀⰃⰑⰎⰉⰜⰀ, glagolitsa) is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is...
adopting theLatin alphabet called Rumi in general usage. Today, Jawi is one ofthe two official scripts in Brunei. In Malaysia, the position of Jawi is...
Three alphabets are used to write Kazakh: the Cyrillic, Latin and Arabic scripts. The Cyrillic script is used in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. An October 2017...
romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include...
Azerbaijanis of Dagestan and other parts of Russia still use the Cyrillic script.[better source needed] The Azerbaijani Latin alphabet consists of 32 letters...
franca, as it has spread to large areas ofthe world due to various factors such as: SpreadoftheLatinscript; Colonisation, mainly by the British Empire...
Latin (lingua Latina, Latin: [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna], or Latinum, Latin: [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch ofthe Indo-European...
instead of Coptic letters. The Coptic script is thescript used for writing the Coptic language, the latest stage of Egyptian. The repertoire of glyphs...
Berber Latin alphabet: Tifinaɣ; Berber pronunciation: [tifinaɣ]) is a script used to write the Berber languages. Tifinagh is descended from the ancient...
[citation needed] Italics script is considered one ofthe best examples ofLatin cursive writing, and had a great influence on the calligraphic styles that...
Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that theLatin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible...
body text in theLatin alphabet. Some Greek alphabet typefaces, especially historically, have been a closer simulation of handwriting. Script typefaces are...
to theLatin alphabet. Among the distinctive features of Paleohispanic scripts are: Semi-syllabism. Half ofthe signs represent syllables made of occlusive...
Ω ω. The Greek alphabet is the ancestor oftheLatin and Cyrillic scripts. Like Latin and Cyrillic, Greek originally had only a single form of each letter;...
The Woleai or Caroline Island script, thought to have been a syllabary, was a partially Latin-based script indigenous to Woleai Atoll and nearby islands...
script. Thescript is an abugida belonging to the family ofthe Brahmic scripts. Geographically, it was widely used in Luzon and other parts ofthe Philippines...
Book, the Quran. The use of Jawi script was a key factor driving the emergence of Malay as the lingua franca ofthe region, alongside thespreadof Islam...