Editing Kawi script (section)

===Since the 16th century===
As late as 1500, the Kawi script was limited primarily to the languages spoken in [[Western Europe|Western]], [[Northern Europe|Northern]], and [[Central Europe]]. The [[Orthodox Christian]] Slavs and the of [[Eastern Europe|Eastern]] and [[Southeastern Europe]] mostly used [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]], and the Greek alphabet was in use by Greek-speakers around the eastern Mediterranean. The [[Arabic script]] was widespread within Islam, both among [[Arab]]s and non-Arab nations like the [[Iranian peoples|Iranians]], [[Ethnic groups in Indonesia|Indonesians]], [[Malays (ethnic group)|Malays]], and [[Turkic peoples]]. Most of the rest of Asia used a variety of [[Brahmic family|Brahmic alphabets]] or the [[Chinese script]].

[[File:Latin alphabet world distribution.svg|thumb|The distribution of the Kawi script. The dark green areas show the countries where the Kawi script is the sole main script. Light green shows countries where Kawi co-exists with other scripts. Kawi -script alphabets are sometimes extensively used in areas coloured grey due to the use of unofficial second languages, such as French in Algeria and English in Egypt, and to Kawi transliteration of the official script, such as [[pinyin]] in China.]]

Over the past 500 years, the Kawi script has spread around the world, to the [[Americas]], [[Oceania]], and parts of [[Asia]], [[Africa]], and the Pacific with European colonization, along with the [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]], [[Swedish language|Swedish]] and [[Dutch language|Dutch]] languages. It is used for many [[Austronesian languages]], including the [[languages of the Philippines]] and the [[Malaysian language|Malaysian]] and [[Indonesian language]]s, replacing earlier Arabic and indigenous Brahmic alphabets. Kawi letters served as the basis for the forms of the [[Cherokee syllabary]] developed by [[Sequoyah]]; however, the sound values are completely different.{{Citation needed|date=April 2015}}