Let us take a look at a multilingual version of the Wikipedia icon. Wikipedia was started in English, in 2001. English is the most widely used language in the world Chinese, or Mandarin, has more native speakers. But English dominates as a second language.

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius spoke Latin Bene advenisti in Vicipaediam, liberam encyclopediam, ad quam augendam  omnes invitantur. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius spoke Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Well-come in Wikipedia, free encyclopaedia, to which increase all are invited. Bene = good – as in beneficial Liber = free – as in liberty Augere = increase – as in augment Invitare = invite Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) In Western Europe Latin used to be the language of teaching and study for nearly 2000 years. English has many words that come from Latin, as we see here.

Demotiki = the language of the people (demos) Latin Marcus Aurelius wrote in Greek Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Καλώς ήλθατε στη Βικιπαίδεια την ελεύθερη εγκυκλοπαίδεια  που γράφουμε συμμετοχικά. Kalos ílthate sti Vikipaídeia tin elevtheri engkyklopaídeia pou gráphoume symmetochiká. Well arrived in Wikipedia the free encyclopedia which we write together Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) But Latin was not the first scholarly language in the West. That honour belongs to Greek.. Wikipedia uses what we call Modern Greek or demotiki - the language of ordinary people - the demos In the Roman Empire 2000 years ago scholars had to know Greek as well as Latin. They spoke Classical Greek. But Modern Greek is not too different. The Greek alphabet differs a bit from the Latin one. We can still recognize some words, like graphoume, which means : we write.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Dalet Gimel Bet Alef Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) The next language is Hebrew. The letters look very different from Greek and Latin. But they have the same origin - from Phoenician. N ote that Hebrew is written from right to left. The first four letters are Alef, Bet, Gimel and Dalet.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) Chinese, or Mandarin, is next. Here the written symbols – or characters - represent words rather than sounds. The characters for fire, tree, person and mouth are easy to recognize.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) Baa Alif Arabic is written from right to left, like Hebrew. The Arabic letters also come from Phoenician. The first two letters are Alif and Baa.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) Gaelic or Irish used to be the main language in Ireland. Now it is only spoken by a minority. But Gaelic remains an important national symbol – like the shamrock or clover plant..

Sea routes used by Japanese Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Sea routes used by Japanese missions to Tang China Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) Japanese writing has a complex history. For the Japanese, China was the great land of culture. Writing was introduced from China. At the beginning Chinese characters were used. Later a separate script based on syllables was added: the katakana, which we see here. The katakana symbols were derived from Chinese characters, however, as we see on the left.

Ural-Altaic languages Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Ural-Altaic languages HUNGARIAN: Üdvözlünk a Wikipédiában! Eztaz enciklopédiát az olvasói szerkesztik. TURKISH: Vikiedi´ye hos geldiniz. Herkesin katkıda bulunabildiği Özgür Ansiklopedi. FINNISH: Tervetuloa Wikipediaan, vapaaseen tietosanakiriaan Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) The Hungarians were invaders from Central Asia. Unlike the Mongols, they remained in Europe. Their language is not Indo-European, but belongs to the Ural-Altaic family. So Hungarian is related to Turkish and to Finnish. Their letters - their script - is Latin.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) BRAHMI The last three scripts are Asian. The Thai symbols go back to an early Indian script called Brahmi. Each symbol consists of a consonant + a vowel.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) Like Japanese, Korean used to be written with Chinese characters, but six hundred years ago this was replaced by an alphabetic script, Hangul.

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) The last Wikipedia version is in Hindi. Like more than a hundred local languages Hindi uses the Devanagari script, which again is derived from Brahmi. BRAHMI

Latin Greek Japanese (Katakana) Hebrew v Hungarian Mandarin Thai Arabic Korean (Hangul) Gaelic (Irish) Hindi (Devanagari) So we end up with three big families of writing: The Phoenician in the West, the Brahmi in the middle and the Chinese in the East. The European languages all use letters derived from Phoenician The scripts of Southern Asian mainly come from the Brahmi family The East Asian scripts, finally, were based on Chinese characters. Chinese Brahmi Phoenician