Eurolinguistics
Writing was introduced by the Greeks and from there also brought to the Romans (6th century BC). There are five alphabets in regular use in the areas generally considered Europe. The Latin alphabet was developed into several scripts. In the early years of Europe, the Carolingian minuscules were the most important variety of the Latin script. From this two branches developed, the Gothic/Fracture/German tradition, which Germans used well into the 20th century, and the Italian/Italic/Antiqua/Latin tradition, still used. For some nations the integration into Europe meant giving up older scripts, e.g. the Germanic gave up the runes (Futhark) (3rd to 17th centuries), the Irish the Ogham script (4th to 7th centuries). The Cyrillic script is the second most widespread alphabet in Europe, and was developed in the 9th century under the influence of the Greek, Latin and Glagolitic alphabets. Both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are used for multiple languages in multiple states, both inside and outside Europe. As well as these two, there are three alphabets used primarily for a single language, although they are occasionally applied to minority languages in the states from which they originate. The oldest of these alphabets is the Greek alphabet, which could be considered the progenitor of all the surviving alphabets of Europe, with the earliest recorded inscriptions appearing in the 9th century BC. The other two are both found in the Caucasus, both originating in the 5th century. The Georgian alphabet is used primarily to write Georgian, though it is also used to write the other Kartvelian languages, Svan, Mingrelian and Laz, all of which are found largely within the borders of Georgia. The Armenian alphabet is used to write the Armenian language, which has two dialects, and has been used to write Turkish in the past.
Western Roman Empire
Latin also influenced Germanic languages such as English and German. It survives in a "purer" form as the language of the Catholic Church; the Catholic Mass was spoken exclusively in Latin until 1969. As such it was also used as a "lingua franca" by ecclesiasticals. It remained the language of medicine, law, and diplomacy (most treaties were written in Latin), as well as of intellectuals and scholarship, well into the 18th century. Since then the use of Latin has declined with the growth of other "lingua francas", especially English and French. The Latin alphabet was expanded due to the split of I into I and J, and of V into U, V, and, in places (especially Germanic languages and Polish), W. It is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. Roman numerals continue to be used in some fields and situations, though they have largely been replaced by Arabic numerals.