eli5 How do languages have the same alphabet (like Spanish and English) but are so different with their words?
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All languages are spoken before they are written. Writing has only been independently invented a handful of times in human history, usually an existing writing system is adapted or modified to be used in a new language.
Latin was a written language (although its alphabet ultimately derives from the Greek alphabet, itself derived from Phoenician, etc.) which directly evolved into Spanish, Italian, French, and other Romance languages. English is a Germanic language and not closely related to Latin, and like other Germanic languages was originally written in a runic alphabet. This alphabet was itself probably derived from an Italic script similar to Latin, or perhaps Latin itself. Regardless, the runic alphabet was eventually supplanted by Latin scripts from Ireland and France during the Middle Ages, probably because most English people who were literate were also writing in Latin which was still the language of the church..
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