700 BCE), containing the earliest known Etruscan abecedarium.įurther information: Old Italic scripts § Origins 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. Some post-Soviet Turkic-majority states decided to reintroduce the Latin script in the 1990s, following the 1928 example of Turkey. However, after the Soviet Union's first three decades, these were gradually abandoned in the 1930s in favour of Cyrillic. Realising 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. In the Age of Discovery, the first wave of European colonisation 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. 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. 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. The ancestors of Latin letters are found in the Phoenician, Greek and Etruscan alphabets. 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. Countries where Latin co-exists with other scripts Latin-script alphabets are sometimes extensively used in areas coloured grey due to the use of unofficial second languages, such as French in Algeria and English in Egypt, and to Latin transliteration of the official script, such as pinyin in China.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |