After the Roman empire collapsed, Latin was largely forgotten as it evolved into or was replaced by other languages. But Latin was kept alive largely by the church and by science. To this day, Catholic priests often give services in Latin, and plants and animals are given scientific names that are generally Latin. More than 800 million people speak Mandarin Chinese, most of them ethnic Chinese living in China or in neighboring Asian countries. English and Spanish are each spoken by over 300 million people, not only in Great Britain and Spain but in numerous countries and territories around the world that were colonized by these once great European powers.
Some alphabets are thousands of years old, while some languages don t even have an alphabet.
One of the greatest language events ever occurred in the United States in the last century when an individual named Sequoyah created an alphabet for the Cherokee language.