1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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..

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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