Slavic languages were written in Cyrillic, but after a while, they started to use the Latin script, and the languages were completely split into separate languages using different scripts, now being known as Eastern and Western Slavic. However, looking at Asian and Middle-Eastern languages, we see that they are not splitting into different languages using different scripts like Slavic languages. Why did that not happen to them?
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I think this is better suited for ask historians. Also it’s based on a false assumption. Not all Slavic languages used Cyrillic at all.
Polish never used Cyrillic and Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian still predominantly do. Obviously, there’s a difference when you have digraphy like in Serbian where Cyrillic and Latin pair 1-1 and have coexisted for about 1500 years next to each other and when you have Chinese script that spent 3500 years developing on its own…
Lots of Slavic languages switched to the Latin alphabet when their countries left the USSR, for political reasons.
Oversimplified and generalized, but most Slavic-speaking countries and nations that use Cyrillic are traditionally predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian, and most Slavic-speaking countries and nations that use the Latin script are traditionally Catholic. There are exceptions (like the majority-Muslim Bosniaks using Cyrillic, or the majority-Orthodox Serbians using both Latin and Cyrillic), but this usually works as a general rule of thumb.
This mostly goes back to how each group of Slavs got converted to Christianity back in the day, and how the Bible would get translated to local languages. Essentially you are looking at writing systems based on Latin created by Catholics and writing systems based on Greek (heavily modified from the start) created by Orthodox Christians. Of course, in reality things were much more complicated, but this should give you a general idea.
Also note that besides East and West Slavic, South Slavic languages are also a thing. Some of them use Cyrillic, and some use Latin!
Not all Asian writing systems are that old. Korea’s Hangul is only 600 years old, and most Mainland Chinese use a simplified form of traditional Chinese characters developed in the 20th century.
Have they?
Vietnamese uses Latin due to French influence, Tagalog does too. Chinese is somewhat original but China imposed or standardized a Chinese script on their territories and those they conquered. Korea used the Chinese based Hanja as their original script but eventually Korea was mostly switched over to their own designed Hangul.
Scripts in all cultures have been replaced or drastically evolved over time, there is no “original script.” The Cyrillic of today is nothing near the original Cyrillic as isn’t the Chinese of 2000 years ago the same as that of today. Ironically Cyrillic was neither invented by Cyril nor was it the first Slavic script, that would be Glagolitic.
It’s all about the mountains!
Mountains divided civilizations between Europe and Asia for endless expanses of time…
Even today: you try trecking across that expanse even with modern maps and technology, and you still run a high risk of death.
As for the Middle-East, deserts are as effective as mountains.
They are though? Japanese script is a direct split from classic Chinese. Korean Hangul, while old, only really saw mass adoption in a nationalism push. Before that they used a derivative of Chinese script.
India practically has a different script per state. Some look similar but aren’t directly transferable.
I don’t know Arabic script, but imagine Abjads have distinct variations.
No this is wrong. Catholic following slav languages use Latin script, Orthodox slavs use Cyrillic. There was no shift – Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Slovenian never had Cyrillic alphabets.
China is a very vast empire, and throughout its history their rulers have always doubled down on unifying the languages across the entire empire. Using the same writing system helps with creating national unity and identity, but at a practical level, it helps with governmental administration. Standardization of language, measurement systems, etc has always been part of the agenda of rulers.
What China didn’t or no longer conquer, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Siam (Thai), Burma (Myanmar), Mongols, etc, old China used to have very strong influences over those regions, but now they have evolved their own scripts.
China themselves have not been using the same script throughout its history. Their current script is simplified Chinese script is actually quite a recent evolution of the script. It’s only been around since the mid 1900s.
And the ancient Chinese scripts like the bone script, seal script, and clerical scripts are quite different from even traditional Chinese. If you look at the history of the writing systems used in China, there are a complex web of multiple dozens of distinct regional scripts.
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