I was looking up words’ etymology and if a word has a Greek origin, it’s spelled in letters I can recognize, with k’s instead of c’s and a few other minor alterations.
For example:
emetic, from the gk. emetikos
catastrophe, from the gk. katastrophe
I thought greek letters resembled symbols more (alpha and beta are recognizable), but gamma, delta, etc.
Modern Greek uses the modern Greek alphabet. One example.
Etymologies in many dictionaries are given with transliterations to simplify for English speakers.
I’m not sure what you’re asking beyond that.
I don’t know what you mean by “symbols”. We use the Greek alphabet as “symbols” in math and science all the time, but the Greeks still use them as letters. The Roman alphabet was derived from the Greek, in case you weren’t aware.
Yeah, Greek letters are “symbols” in exactly the same sense that our (Latin) letters are.
In answer to the OP, I’d say no. That’s the website of Ethnos, a politically centrist (for Greece) newspaper with a high circulation.
The Greeks speak Greek, and write with the (modern) Greek alphabet (which is slightly different than the Classical Greek alphabet).
There’s a movement in Greece to switch to the Latin alphabet for better integration with the rest of Europe–it’s a pain in the ass to be the only country in Europe that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. But it hasn’t happened yet, and may never get beyond the daydream stage.
One might call it pi in the sky thinking.
ETA: I’m sure you meant “European Union”, not “Europe”, as several European countries use the Cyrillic alphabet (or one of its forms).
The fact that Greece uses a non-Roman alphabet is illustrated on Euro notes - they say “EURO” and “EYPΩ” on them. Of course now they’re regretting that they allowed that to become a necessity.
That’s only if you think that countries like Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia and the Ukraine are not countries in Europe.
Like others pointed out, I think Lemur866 was thinking of the EU instead.
Fortunately, Bulgaria joined to keep Greece happy at the “We Can’t Understand Your Alphabet!” table.
Certainly in the UK at least, it’s common to use the term “Europe” to mean the EU. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this usage is reflected in other parts of the EU.
There’s also Cyprus! 
Not really so in the US, which is where **Lemur **lives.
In the US, the “important” part of Europe is the EU. When we speak (generally) of Europe, it means the EU, and not everything geographically located in Europe.
I remember once being disqualified in Q&A because I asked a question in geography class (in the 80’s!) about the USSR because my question wasn’t about “Europe.”
That’s certainly not my experience in the US.
Reading street maps and walking around in Greece is trickier than many places, because if you can’t even pronounce the words in your head it’s a lot harder to remember directions. With many other foreign languages, at least you can mispronounce the words to yourself and have an internal dialogue about how to get someplace. Nothing but frat houses in Athens…
(note that I’m not suggesting that Greece should change - it’s their country, they can do whatever they please)
My mom had the opposite problem. Since she’s familiar with the Greek alphabet but doesn’t remotely speak Greek, she would find herself constantly looking at signs and absently transliterating them to herself, and feel vaguely pleased until she abruptly realized that, no, she still couldn’t understand it. (I believe her favourites were the moving vans marked “Metaphor.”)
When I see that, I instantly think καταστροφή, which is the exact same word spelled out using Greek letters. It’s pretty much a letter for letter substitution except for ph, which is φ.
It doesn’t surprise me that a dictionary or some sort of etymology resource would spell it out using English letters for English speaking people. To most English speakers, καταστροφή is just a bunch of funny symbol-ish squiggles.
I also see Greek words spelled out in English letters a lot on the computer, at least on American computers. Your basic Joe Average computer comes with an English keyboard and an English speaking operating system. A person who speaks both English and Greek can easily type out the Greek word using their English phonetic equivalents, and can read them easily as well. Typing Greek on an English speaking computer means either downloading a font pack or typing in a bunch of alt codes to get the letters, which is harder than just typing out the words using English letters. Font packs are pretty common though.
είναι όλα τα ελληνικά σε μένα 
(einai ola ta Ellinika se mena - it’s all Greek to me)
To be fair, most of the USSR (in terms of geographic area) was in Asia.
Native greek speaker here.
No, we do not normally use latin characters. We do however use “greeklish” Greeklish - Wikipedia when use of Greek characters is impossible, like the early days of the internet or older mobile phones etc.
Some people, usually youngsters still use greeklish because it is considered hip or cool or simply out of laziness but generally use of greeklish instead of proper greek is frowned upon.
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But also to be fair, a very large chunk is in Europe, the capital is in Europe, the dominant culture was European, the dominant language was European, and US foreign policy was heavily influenced by its position in Europe.
Trying to get today’s Europeans to admit that Turkey has any place in Europe, though…