How can the Greek Alphabet be more Widespread?

How can the Latin alphabet become an obscure writing system in Central Italy, while the Greek Alphabet is utilized in one shape or form from the Egypt to Iceland? I am not necessarily saying that Greek spreads across Europe and diverges into many daughter languages. I would think that all PODs would have Rome either not becoming a dominant power in Europe or conquered or destroyed by some other European civilization. What PODs could cause this situation?
 
TBH I think the easiest way would be to have the Romans adopt the Greek alphabet themselves at some point. Then, assuming the course of world history goes much as IOTL, the Greek alphabet would become as widespread as the Latin is today.
 
How strictly are you defining the Greek alphabet? Because there wasn't one singular version that everyone used until roman/byzantine times.

Define it loosely enough and greek was used from Egypt to Iceland, because the Coptic and Runic alphabets originated from different variants of the greek alphabet. And of course the latin alphabet is in cluded in that.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
How can the Latin alphabet become an obscure writing system in Central Italy, while the Greek Alphabet is utilized in one shape or form from the Egypt to Iceland?

2i8vxe.jpg
 
This is tricky, as the reason alphabets change when they are adopted by other groups is because they use different sets of phonemes.

I understand that completely. Nonetheless, new alphabets are sometimes based off of old ones. So ultimately, I am asking how can writing take a different trajectory than it did in our timeline.
How strictly are you defining the Greek alphabet? Because there wasn't one singular version that everyone used until roman/byzantine times.

Define it loosely enough and greek was used from Egypt to Iceland, because the Coptic and Runic alphabets originated from different variants of the greek alphabet. And of course the latin alphabet is in cluded in that.

I do understand but I am talking about scripts like Runic and Latin script being replaced by ATL Greek derivatives and the Greek script.
 
The easiest ways is if the Byzantine Empire never fell, then Anatolia, the Near East and the Balkans would use the Greek Alphabet.
 
Western Europe needs to adopt it, so that when the Age of Exploration and Colonialism kick in, they can then spread it to the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa.

To do that, you need an Italian-based polity who adopted said alphabet have the same wild success the OTL Romans did.

For that, the absolute latest PoD I can imagine is Pyrrhus (or more realistically Alexander) being wildly successful in taking Italy, and his successors in hellenizing the place.

Going further back, you can for instance imagine an alternate Greek colony in Italy take the place of Rome by subduing the Etruscans and the remaining tribes in central Italy, and go from there.
 
Western Europe needs to adopt it, so that when the Age of Exploration and Colonialism kick in, they can then spread it to the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa.

Or maybe have a different type of expansion? The Greeks (or another nation using their alphabet) expand down the Nile, eventually reaching the Indian Ocean and go from there?
 
Or maybe have a different type of expansion? The Greeks (or another nation using their alphabet) expand down the Nile, eventually reaching the Indian Ocean and go from there?
Ptolemaic Egypt (and the Romans after them) traded as far south as Somalia, and the King of Axum was fluent in Greek. Assuming continued Hellenistic domination of the southern shores of the Mediterranean, I agree that there's a good chance their alphabet could spread south into Africa. However, any success would likely be comparable to the spread of Arabic, which, while still considerable, pales in comparison to the expansion of the Latin script achieved as the result of colonialsim
 
Have the russians adopt the greek alphabet wholesale instead of creating cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet was not created by Russians. It's older than Russia. And it is derived from Greek alphabet already, with some letters added for Slavic phonemes absent in Greek.
Problem with Greek is that without additional letters it hardly fits phonologies of languages other than Greek. Latin is not perfect too, but Greek lacks even distinction between b and v.
 
Top