(Redirected from Western Italo-Western languages)
The 'Romance languages' (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the
Indo-European language family, comprising all the languages that descend from
Latin, the language of the
Roman Empire. They have more than 700 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the
Americas,
Europe, and
Africa, as well as in many smaller regions scattered through the world.
All Romance languages descend from
Vulgar Latin, the language of soldiers, settlers and merchants of the Empire, which was significantly different from the
Classical Latin of Roman literati. Between 200 BC and AD 150, the expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, made Latin the dominant native language over an area spanning from the
Iberian Peninsula to the Western coast of the
Black Sea, and from the
Maghreb to
Britannia. During the Empire's decline and after its fragmentation and collapse in the
5th century, evolution of Latin within each local area accelerated; eventually the dialects diverged into myriad distinct varieties; some of which survived in modern forms. The overseas empires established by
Spain,
Portugal and
France from the
15th century onward then spread their languages to the other continents—to such an extent that about 70% of all Romance speakers today live outside Europe.
Despite multiple influences from pre-Roman languages and from later invasions, the
phonology,
morphology,
lexicon, and
syntax of all Romance languages are predominantly evolutions of Latin. As a result, the group shares several linguistic features that set it apart from other Indo-European branches. In particular, with only one or two exceptions, Romance languages have lost the
declension system of Classical Latin and, as a result, have
SVO sentence structure and make extensive use of
prepositions.
Name
The term "Romance" comes from the Vulgar Latin adverb ''romanice'', derived from ''romanicus'', as used in the expression ''romanice loqui'' "to speak Roman" (that is, the Latin
vernacular), contrasted with ''latine loqui'', "to speak Latin" (the
conservative version which was taught in schools), and with ''barbarice loqui'', "to speak
Barbarian" (the non-Latin languages of the peoples who conquered the
Roman Empire).
[ Lingüística Românica, , Rodolfo, Ilari, Ática, 2002, ISBN 85-08-04250-7 ] From this adverb originated the noun ''romance'', which applied initially to anything written ''romanice'', "in the Roman vernacular".
The word ''romance'' with the sense of "
romance novel" or "love affair" has the same origin. In the
medieval literature of Western Europe, serious writing was usually in Latin, while popular tales, often focusing on love, were composed in the vernacular and came to be called "romances".
History
Vulgar Latin
Main articles: Vulgar Latin
There is very little documentary evidence about the nature of Vulgar Latin, and it is often hard to interpret or generalise based upon what does exist. In any case, many of its speakers were soldiers, slaves, displaced peoples and forced resettlers—that is, more likely to be natives of the conquered lands than natives of Rome. It is believed that Vulgar Latin already had most of the features that are shared by all Romance languages, which distinguish them from Classical Latin—such as the almost complete loss of the
Latin declension system and its replacement by
prepositions, the loss of the
neuter gender, of
comparative inflections, and of many verbal tenses, the innovative use of
articles, and the initial stages of change in pronunciation of ''c'' and ''g'' before the front vowels ''e'' and ''i''. There are some modern languages such as
Finnish which have similar, quite sharp, differences between their printed and spoken form, which suggests that perhaps the Vulgar Latin which became the Romance languages was always there, spoken alongside the written Classical Latin reserved for official and formal occasions.
Fall of the Empire
The political
decline of the Roman Empire in the
fifth century and the large-scale
migrations of the period, notably the
Germanic incursions, led to a fragmentation of the Latin-speaking world into several independent states. Central Europe and the
Balkans were occupied by Germanic and
Slavic tribes,
Huns and
Turks, isolating
Romania from the rest of Latin Europe. Latin also disappeared from southern
Britain, which had been for a time part of the Empire. But the Germanic tribes that had entered
Italy,
France, and the
Iberian Peninsula eventually adopted Latin and the remnants of
Roman culture, and so Latin continued to be the dominant language there.
The Romance language family (simplified) - click to enlarge
Latent incubation
Between the fifth and
tenth centuries, spoken Vulgar Latin underwent divergent evolution in the various parts of its domain, leading to innumerable distinct languages. This evolution is poorly documented, for the written language continued to be a Latin close to the Classical variant.
Recognition of the vernaculars
Between the 10th and
13th centuries, some local
vernaculars developed a written form and began to supplant Latin in many of its roles. In some countries, such as
Portugal, this transition was expedited by force of law, whereas in other countries, such as
Italy, the rise of the vernacular was the result of many prominent poets and writers adopting it as their written medium.
Uniformization and standardization
The invention of the press apparently slowed down the evolution of Romance languages from the
16th century on, and brought instead a tendency towards greater uniformity of
standard languages within political boundaries, at the expense of other Romance languages or
dialects less favored politically. In France, for instance, the ''Francien'' spoken in the region of Paris gradually spread to the entire country, while the
Langue d'oc and
Franco-Provençal of the south lost ground.
Current status
The most widely spoken Romance language by
native speaker today is
Spanish, followed by
Portuguese,
French,
Italian and
Romanian, all of which are main and official
national languages in more than one country. A few other languages have official status on a regional or otherwise limited level, for instance
Friulian,
Sardinian and
Valdôtain in Italy;
Romansh in Switzerland;
Galician,
Occitan Aranese and
Catalan in Spain (the last of which is also the only official language in the small sovereign state of
Andorra). French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian are also official languages of the
European Union. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan are the official languages of the
Latin Union; French and Spanish are two of the six official languages of the
United Nations.
Outside Europe,
French,
Spanish and
Portuguese are spoken and enjoy official status in various countries that made up their respective
colonial empires. French is an official language of
Canada,
Haiti, many countries in
Africa, and some in the
Indian and
Pacific Oceans, as well as France's current overseas possession. Spanish is an official language of
Mexico, much of
South America,
Central America and the
Caribbean, and of
Equatorial Guinea in
Africa. Portuguese is the official language of
Brazil, multiple countries in Africa and of
East Timor. Although
Italy also had some colonial possessions, its language did not remain official after the end of the colonial domination, resulting in
Italian being spoken only as a minority or secondary language by immigrant communities in
North and
South America and
Australia or African countries like
Libya,
Eritrea and
Somalia.
Romania did not establish a colonial empire, but the language spread outside of Europe due to emigration, notably in Western Asia;
Romanian flourished in
Israel, where it is spoken by some 5% of the total population as mother tongue,
[1] and by many more as a secondary language, considering the large population of Romanian-born
Jews who moved to Israel after
World War II.
[2]
Proportion of the 690 million native Romance language speakers contained by each language.
The total native speakers of Romance languages is divided as follows (with their ranking within the languages of the world in brackets):
★
Spanish 47% (5th)
★
Portuguese 26% (7th)
★
French 11% (11th)
★
Italian 9% (18th)
★
Romanian 4% (34th)
★
Catalan 1% (n/a)
★ others 2%
:
Source: MSN Encarta - Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People (number of Romance speakers estimated at 690 million speakers, number of Catalan language speakers estimated at 8 million)
The remaining Romance languages survive mostly as spoken languages for informal contact. National governments have historically viewed linguistic diversity as an economic, administrative or military liability, as well a potential source of
separatist movements; therefore, they have generally fought to eliminate it—by extensively promoting the use of the official language, by restricting the use of the "other" languages in the media, by characterizing them as mere "dialects"—or worse.
In the late
20th and early
21st centuries, however, increased sensitivity to the rights of minorities have allowed some of these languages to recover some of their prestige and lost rights. Yet, it is unclear whether these political changes will be enough to reverse the minority languages' decline.
Linguistic features
Features inherited from Indo-European
As members of the Indo-European (IE) family, Romance languages have a number of features that are shared with other members of this family, and in particular with
English; but which set them apart from languages of other families, such as
Arabic,
Basque,
Hungarian, or
Georgian. These include:
★ Almost all their words are classified into four major classes —
nouns,
verbs,
adjectives, and
adverbs — each with a specific set of possible syntactic roles.
★ Nouns, adjectives,
determiners and some
pronouns inflect according to
grammatical number and
grammatical gender.
★
Inflection is normally marked with
suffixes.
★ A variety of
grammatical distinctions are expressed on verbs, such as:
★
★
Person and number;
★
★
Tense,
mood, and
aspect.
★
★
Voice.
★ They are verb-centered; meaning that the basic
clause structure consists of a verb, expressing an action involving one or more nouns — the
arguments of the verb — that play specific semantic roles in the action and specific syntactic roles in the clause.
★ They are
fusional,
nominative-accusative languages.
Features inherited from Classical Latin
The Romance languages share a number of features that were inherited from Classical Latin, and collectively set them apart from most other Indo-European languages.
★ They have two grammatical numbers, singular and plural (no
dual).
★ In most languages,
personal pronouns have different forms according to their grammatical function in a sentence (a remnant of the Latin case system); there is usually a form for the
subject (inherited from the Latin nominative) another for the
object (from the accusative or the dative), and a third set of personal pronouns used after prepositions or in stressed positions (see
Prepositional pronoun and
Disjunctive pronoun, for further information). Third person pronouns often have different forms for the direct object (accusative), the indirect object (dative), and the
reflexive.
★ Most are
null-subject languages. French is a notable exception.
★ Verbs have many
conjugations, including in most languages:
★
★ A
present tense, a
preterite, an
imperfect, a
pluperfect and a
future tense in the indicative mood, for statements of fact.
★
★ Present and preterite
subjunctive tenses, for hypothetical or uncertain conditions. Several languages (for example, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish) have also imperfect and pluperfect subjunctives.
★
★ An imperative mood, for direct commands.
★
★ Three
non-finite forms: infinitive, gerund, and past participle.
★
★ Distinct active and passive voices, as well as an
impersonal passive voice.
★ The main tense and mood distinctions that were made in classical Latin are generally still present in the modern Romance languages, though many are now expressed through
compound rather than simple verbs. The passive voice, which was mostly made up of simple verbs in classical Latin, was completely replaced with compound forms.
★ Several tenses, especially of the indicative mood, have been preserved with little change:
| | Present | Preterite | Imperfect |
|---|
| Latin | dīcit | dīxit | dicēbat |
|---|
| Italian | dice | disse | diceva |
|---|
| Spanish | dice | dijo | decía |
|---|
| Sicilian | dici | dissi | dicìa |
|---|
| French | dit | dit | disait |
|---|
| Neapolitan | dice | dicette | diceva |
|---|
| Portuguese | diz | disse | dizia |
|---|
| Romanian | zice | zise | zicea |
|---|
| Galician | di | dixo | dicía |
|---|
| Catalan | diu | digué | deia |
|---|
| Piedmontese | a dis | a l'ha dit | a disìa |
|---|
| English | [he] says | [he] said | [he] used to say |
|---|
Features inherited from Vulgar Latin
Romance languages also have a number of features that are not shared with Classical Latin. Most of these features are thought to be inherited from Vulgar Latin. Even though the Romance languages are all derived from Latin, they are arguably much closer to each other than to their common ancestor, due to a core of common developments. The main difference is the loss of the case system of Classical Latin, an essential feature which allowed great freedom of word order, and has no counterpart in any Romance language except Romanian. In this regard, the distance between any modern Romance language and Latin is comparable to that between
Modern English and
Old English. While speakers of French, Italian or Spanish, for example, can quickly learn to see through the phonological changes reflected in spelling differences, and thus recognize many Latin words, they will often fail to understand the meaning of Latin sentences.
★ The distinctions of
vowel length present in Classical Latin were lost in most Romance languages (an exception is
Friulian), and partly replaced with "qualitative" contrasts like
monophthong versus
diphthong (Italian, Spanish; French to a lesser extent), or with
vowel height contrasts (as in Portuguese and Catalan).
★ There are definite and indefinite
articles, derived from Latin
demonstratives and the numeral ''unus'' ("one").
★ There are only two
grammatical genders, masculine and feminine. The neuter gender of Latin has been lost (mostly merging with the masculine). (Exceptions:
Romanian, which retains
neuter gender; Spanish, which has the neuter third person pronoun ''ello'', the neuter demonstratives ''eso, esto, aquello'', and the neuter article ''lo'', all used for objects or some abstract notions; and Italian, which while not keeping the neuter gender intact, has residual traces of it represented by some words that switch gender between singular and plural, such as ''il dito'' (the finger), plural ''le dita'', inherited from Latin ''digitum'', plural ''digita'').
★ Apart from gender and number, nouns, adjectives and
determiners are not inflected.
Cases have generally been lost, though a trace of them survives in the
personal pronouns. An exception is
Romanian, which retains a combined
genitive-
dative case.
★ Adjectives generally follow the noun they modify.
★ Many Latin combining prefixes were incorporated in the lexicon as new roots and verb stems, e.g. Italian ''estrarre'' ("to extract") from Latin ''ex-'' ("out") and ''trahere'' ("to drag").
★ Many Latin constructions involving nominalized verbal forms (e.g. the use of accusative plus infinitive in
indirect discourse and the use of the
ablative absolute) were dropped in favor of constructions with subordinate clauses in all Romance languages except Italian (for example, Latin ''tempore permittente'' > Italian ''tempo permettendo''; L. ''hoc facto'' > I. ''fatto ciò'').
★ The normal clause structure is
SVO, rather than
SOV, and is much less flexible than in Latin.
★ Due to sound changes which made it
homophonous with the preterite, the Latin
future indicative tense was dropped, and replaced with a periphrasis of the form
infinitive + present tense of ''habēre'' ("to have"). With time, this structure was
reanalysed as a new future tense.
★ In a similar process, an entirely new tense
conditional form was created.
★ While the synthetic
passive voice of classical Latin was abandoned in favour of
periphrastic constructions, the active voice remained in use. However, several tenses have changed meaning, especially subjunctives. For example:
★
★ The Latin pluperfect indicative became a
conditional in Catalan and Sicilian, and an imperfect
subjunctive in Spanish.
★
★ The Latin pluperfect subjunctive developed into an imperfect subjunctive in all languages except
Romansh, where it became a conditional, and Romanian, where it became a
pluperfect indicative.
★
★ The Latin preterite subjunctive, together with the future perfect indicative, became a future subjunctive in Old Spanish, Portuguese, and
Galician.
★
★ The Latin imperfect subjunctive became a personal
infinitive in Portuguese and Galician.
★ Many Romance languages have two
copular verbs, derived from the Latin ''stare'' (mostly used for "temporary state") and ''esse'' (mostly used for "essential attributes"). However, the distinction was eventually lost in some languages, notably French, which now have only the first copula. In French, ''stare'' and ''esse'' had become ''ester'' and ''estre'' by the late Middle Ages. Due to phonological development, there were the forms ''êter'' and ''être'', which eventually merged to ''être''. In Italian, the two verbs share the same past participle, ''stato''. See
Romance copula, for further information.
Other shared features
The Romance languages also share a number of features that were not the result of common inheritance, but rather of various cultural diffusion processes in the
Middle Ages — such as literary diffusion, commercial and military interactions, political domination, influence of the Catholic Church, and (especially in later times) conscious attempts to "purify" the languages by reference to Classical Latin. Some of those features have in fact spread to other non-Romance (and even non-Indo-European) languages, chiefly in Europe. Here are some of these "late origin" shared features:
★ Most Romance languages have polite forms of address that change the person and/or number of 2nd person subjects (
T-V distinction), such as the ''tu''/''vous'' contrast in French, the ''tu''/''Lei'' contrast in Italian, the ''tu''/''dumneavoastră'' (from ''dominus'' + ''vostre'') in Romanian or the ''tú'' (or ''vos'')/''usted'' contrast in Spanish.
★ They all have a large collection of learned
Hellenisms and
Latinisms, with prefixes, stems, and suffixes retained or reintroduced from Greek and Latin, and used to coin new words. Most of these are also used in English, e.g. ''tele-'', ''poly-'', ''meta-'', ''pseudo-'', ''dis-'', ''ex-'', ''post-'', ''-scope'', ''-logy'', ''-tion''.
★ During the
Renaissance, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and a few other Romance languages developed a new,
progressive aspect that did not exist in Latin. In French, progressive constructions remain very limited, the
imperfect aspect generally being preferred, as in Latin.
★ Many Romance languages now have a verbal construction analogous to the
present perfect of English. In some, it has taken the place of the old
preterite (at least in the vernacular); in others, the two coexist with somewhat different meanings.
Divergent features
In spite of their common origin, the descendants of Vulgar Latin have many differences. These occur at all levels, including the sound systems, the orthography, the nominal, verbal, and adjectival inflections, the auxiliary verbs and the semantics of verbal tenses, the function words, the rules for subordinate clauses, and, especially, in their vocabularies. While most of those differences are clearly due to independent development after the breakup of the Roman Empire (including invasions and cultural exchanges), one must also consider the influence of prior languages in territories of Latin Europe that fell under Roman rule, and possible
inhomogeneities in Vulgar Latin itself.
It is often said that French and Portuguese are the most innovative of the Romance languages, each in different ways, that
Sardinian and
Romanian are the most isolated and conservative variants, and that the
languages of Italy other than Sardinian (including
Italian) occupy a middle ground. Some even claim that
Languedocian Occitan is the "most average" western Romance language. However, these evaluations are largely subjective, as they depend on how much weight one assigns to specific features. In fact all Romance languages, including Sardinian and Romanian, are all vastly different from their common ancestor.
Romanian (together with other related minor languages, like
Aromanian) in fact has a number of grammatical features which are unique within Romance, but are shared with other non-Romance languages of the
Balkans, such as
Albanian,
Bulgarian,
Greek,
Serbian and
Turkish. These include, for example, the structure of the vestigial case system, the placement of articles as suffixes of the nouns (''cer'' = "sky", ''cerul'' = "the sky"), and several more. This phenomenon, called the
Balkan linguistic union, may be due to contacts between those languages in post-Roman times.
Sound changes
The vocabularies of Romance languages have undergone considerable change since their birth, by various phonological processes that were characteristic of each language. Those changes applied more or less systematically to all words, but were often conditioned by the sound context or morphological structure.
Some languages have lost sounds from the original Latin words. French, in particular, has dropped all final vowels, and sometimes also the preceding consonant: thus Latin ''lupus'' and ''luna'' became Italian ''lupo'' and ''luna'' but French ''loup'' and ''lune'' . Catalan, Occitan, many Northern Italian dialects, and Romanian (
Daco-Romanian) lost the final vowels in most masculine nouns and adjectives, but retained them in the feminine. Other languages, including Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and the Southern dialects of Romanian have retained those vowels.
Some languages have lost the final vowel ''-e'' from verbal infinitives, e.g. ''dīcere'' → Portuguese ''dizer'' ("to say"). Other common cases of final truncation are the verbal endings, e.g. Latin ''amāt'' → Italian ''ama'' ("he loves"), ''amābam'' → ''amavo'' ("I loved"), ''amābat'' → ''amava'' ("he loved"), ''amābatis'' → ''amavate'' ("you ''(pl.)'' loved"), etc.
Sounds have often been lost in the middle of words, too; e.g. Latin ''Luna'' → Galician and Portuguese ''Lua'', ''crēdere'' → Spanish ''creer'' ("to believe").
On the other hand, some languages have inserted many
epenthetic vowels in certain contexts. For instance Spanish, Galician and Portuguese have generally inserted an ''e'' at the start of Latin words that began with ''s'' + consonant, such as ''sperō'' → ''espero'' ("I hope"). French originally did the same, but then dropped the ''s'': ''spatula'' → arch. ''espaule'' → ''épaule'' ("shoulder"). In the case of Italian, a unique article, ''lo'' for the definite and ''uno'' for the indefinite, is used for masculine ''s'' + consonant words (''sbaglio'', "mistake"), as well as all masculine words beginning with ''z'' (''zaino'', "backpack").
For more detailed descriptions, see the articles
History of French,
From Latin to Portuguese,
Latin to Romanian sound changes, and
Linguistic history of Spanish.
Lexical stress
The position of the stressed syllable in a word generally varies from word to word in each Romance language, and often moves as the word is inflected. Sometimes the stress is lexically significant, e.g. Italian ''Papa'' ("Pope") and ''papà'' ("daddy"), or Spanish imperfect subjunctive ''cantara'' ("[if he] sang") and future ''cantará'' ("he will sing"). However, the main function of Romance stress in appears to be a clue for
speech segmentation — namely to help the listener identify the word boundaries in normal speech, where inter-word spaces are usually absent.
In Romance languages, the stress is usually confined to one of the last three syllables of the word. That limit may be occasionally exceeded by some verbs with attached clitics, e.g. Italian ''mettiamocene'' or ''Metintilu'' in Friulian ("let's put some of it in there"), Spanish ''entregándomelo'' ("delivering it to me") or Portuguese ''dávamo-vo-lo'' ("we were giving it to you"). Originally the stress was predominantly in the
penultimate syllable, but that pattern has changed considerably in some languages. In French, for instance, the loss of final vowels has left the stress almost exclusively on the last syllable.
Formation of plurals
Main articles: Romance plurals,
La Spezia-Rimini Line
Some Romance languages form plurals by adding (derived from the plural of the Latin accusative case), while others form the plural by changing the final vowel (by influence of the Latin nominative ending ).
★ Vowel change: Italian, Romanian.
★ Plural in : Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, Sardinian, Friulian, Romansh.
★ Special case of French: Falls into the second group historically (and orthographically), but the final ''-s'' is no longer pronounced (except in
liaison contexts), meaning that singular and plural nouns are usually homophonous in isolation. Many
determiners have a distinct plural formed by changing the vowel 'and' allowing in liaison.
Borrowed words
Vulgar Latin borrowed many words, often from
Germanic languages that replaced words from
Classical Latin during the
Migration Period, even including common basic vocabulary. Notable examples are ''
★ blancus'' (white), which replaced Classical Latin ''albus'' in most major languages and dialects except for
Romanian; ''
★ guerra'' (war), which replaced ''bellum''; and words for the
cardinal directions, where words similar to English north, south, east and west replaced the Classical Latin words ''borealis'' (or ''septentrionalis'') (north), ''australis'' (or ''meridionalis'') (south), ''occidentalis'' (west) and ''orientalis'' (east) everywhere (for standard usage). See
History of French - The Franks.
Derivations
Words for "more"
Some Romance languages use a version of Latin ''plus'', others a version of ''magis''.
★ ''Plus''-derived: Sardinian ''prusu'', French ''plus'' , Italian ''più'' , Friulian ''plui'', Romansh ''pli'', Venetina ''pi''. In Catalan ''pus'' is exclusively used on negative statements in Mallorcan Catalan dialect, and "més" is the word mostly used.
★ ''Magis''-derived: Sardinian (''mera''), Galician and Portuguese (''mais''; mediaeval
Galician-Portuguese had both words: ''mais'' and ''chus''), Spanish (''más''), Catalan (''més''), Venetian (''massa'' or ''masa'', "too much") Occitan (''mai''), Romanian (''mai''), Italian (''mai'', used in constructions such as ''non... mai'', meaning "never", or ''"Londra è la più grande città che io abbia mai visto"'' "London is the biggest city I have ever seen").
Words for "nothing"
Although the Latin word for "nothing" is nihil, the common word for "nothing" became ''nudha'' in Sardinian, ''nada'' in Spanish and Portuguese, ''nada'' and ''ren'' in Galician, ''rien'' in French, ''res'' in Catalan, ''cosa'' and ''res'' in Aragonese, ''ren'' in Occitan, ''nimic'' in Romanian, and ''niente'' and ''nulla'' in Italian, ''gnente'' in Venetian, and ''nue'' and ''nuie'' in Friulian. Some argue that all three roots derive from different parts of a Latin phrase ''nullam rem natam'' ("no thing born"), an emphatic idiom for "nothing". Meanwhile, Italian and Venetian ''niente'' and ''gnente'' would seem to be more logically derived from Latin ''ne(c) entem'' ("no being").
The number 16
Romanian constructs the names of the numbers 11–19 by a regular pattern which could be translated as "one-over-ten", "two-over-ten", etc.. All the other Romance languages use a pattern like "one-ten", "two-ten", etc. for 11–15, and the pattern "ten-and-seven, "ten-and-eight", "ten-and-nine" for 17–19. For 16, however, they split into two groups: some use "six-ten", some use "ten-and-six":
★ "Sixteen": Catalan and Occitan ''setze'', French ''seize'', Italian ''sedici'', Venetian ''sédexe'', Romansh ''sedesch'', Friulian ''sedis'', Lombard ''sedas / sedes'', Franco-Provençal ''sèze'', Sardinian ''sédichi''.
★ "Ten and six": Portuguese ''dezasseis'' or ''dezesseis'', Galician ''dezaseis'', Spanish ''dieciséis'', the Marchigiano dialect ''digissei''.
★ "Six over ten": Romanian ''șaisprezece'' (where ''spre'' derives from
Latin ''super'').
Classical Latin uses the "one-ten" pattern for 11–17 (''ūndecim'', ''duodecim'', ..., ''septendecim''), but then switches to "two-off-twenty" (''duodēvigintī'') and "one-off-twenty" (''ūndēvigintī''). For the sake of comparison, note that English and German use two special words derived from "one left over" and "two left over" for 11 and 12, then the pattern "three-ten", "four-ten", ..., "nine-ten" for 13–19.
To have and to hold
The verbs derived from Latin ''habēre'' "to have", ''tenēre'' "to hold", and ''esse'' "to be" are used differently in the various Romance languages, to express possession, to construct perfect tenses, and to make existential statements ("there is"). If we use 'T' for ''tenēre'', 'H' for ''habēre'', and 'E' for ''esse'', we have the following distribution:
★ 'HHE': Romanian, Italian
★ 'HHH': Occitan, French, Romansh.
★ 'THH': Spanish, Catalan, Aragonese.
★ 'TTH': European Portuguese.
★ 'TTT': Brazilian Portuguese.
For example:
:English: I have, I have done, there is
:Friulian: ''(jo) o ai'', ''(jo) o ai fat'', ''a 'nd è, al è'' ('HHE')
:Venetian: ''(mi) go'', ''(mi) go fat'', ''ghe xe, ghi n'é'' ('HHE')
:Lombard (Western): ''(mi) a gh-u'', ''(mi) a u fai'', ''al gh'è, a gh'è'' ('HHE')
:Romansh: ''(jau) hai'', ''(jau) hai fatg'', ''igl ha'' ('HHH')
:Romanian: ''(eu) am'', ''(eu) am făcut'', ''este'' (or ''e'') ('HHE')
:Italian: ''(io) ho'', ''(io) ho fatto'', ''c'è'' ('HHE')
:French: ''j'ai'', ''j'ai fait'', ''il y a'' ('HHH')
:Catalan: ''(jo) tinc'', ''(jo) he fet'', ''hi ha'' ('THH')
:Aragonese: ''(yo) tiengo'' (but ''(yo) he'' dialectally), ''(yo) he feito'', ''bi ha'' ('THH')
:Spanish: ''(yo) tengo'', ''(yo) he hecho'', ''hay'' ('THH')
:Galician: ''(eu) teño'', - , ''hai'' ('T-H'; Galician does not have a present perfect)
:Portuguese: ''(eu) tenho'', ''(eu) tenho feito'', ''há'' in Portugal ('TTH') / ''tem'' in Brazil ('TTT')
Ancient Galician-Portuguese used to employ the auxiliary 'H' for permanent states, such as ''Eu hei um nome'' "I have a name" (i.e. for all my life), and 'T' for non-permanent states ''Eu tenho um livro'' "I have a book" (i.e. perhaps not so tomorrow), but this construction is no longer used in modern Galician and Portuguese. Informal
Brazilian Portuguese uses the 'T' verb even in the existential sense, e.g. ''Tem água no copo'' "There is water in the glass".
In most languages, the descendant of ''tenēre'' still has the sense of "to hold", as well, e.g. Italian ''tieni il libro'', French ''tu tiens le livre'', Catalan ''tens el llibre'', Romanian ''ine cartea'', Friulian ''Tu tu tegnis il libri'' "You're holding the book". In others, like Portuguese, this sense has been mostly lost, and a different verb is currently used for "to hold".
Romansh uses, besides ''igl ha'', the form ''i dat'' (literally: it gives), borrowed from German ''es gibt''.
To have or to be
Some languages use their equivalent of "have" as an
auxiliary verb to form the perfect forms (e. g. French ''passé composé'') of all verbs; others use "be" for some verbs and "have" for others.
★ "Have" only: Standard Catalan, Spanish, Romanian, Sicilian.
★ "Have" and "be": Occitan, French, Italian, Romansh, some dialects of Catalan (although such usage is recessing in those).
In the latter, the verbs which use "be" as an auxiliary are
unaccusative verbs, that is, intransitive verbs that show motion not directly initiated by the subject or changes of state, such as "fall", "come", "become". All other verbs (intransitive
unergative verbs and all transitive verbs) use "have". For example, in French, ''J'ai vu'' "I have seen" vs. ''Je suis tombé'' "I am fallen" ("I have fallen"). A similar dichotomy exists in the Germanic languages, which share the same ''
Sprachbund''; German and the Scandinavian languages use "have" and "be", while modern English uses "have" only.
I did or I have done
Some languages (e.g. Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, Portuguese and written French and Italian) make a distinction between a
preterite and a
present perfect tense (cf. English ''I did'' vs. ''I have done''). Others (spoken French, Italian and Galician) contain only one tense, which renders both meanings. French, Italian, and European Spanish use the compound past for this, while Sicilian and Latin American Spanish use the simple past.
Writing systems
The Romance languages have kept the writing system of Latin, adapting it to their evolution.
One exception was Romanian before the 19th century, where, after the Roman retreat, literacy was reintroduced through the
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet due to Slavic influences.
Also the non-Christian populations of Spain used the systems of their culture languages (
Arabic and
Hebrew) to write ''
aljamiado'' versions of Castilian (
Ladino among
Sephardic Jews).
Letter values
All Romance languages are written with the "core"
Latin alphabet of 22 letters — ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', ''D'', ''E'', ''F'', ''G'', ''H'', ''I'', ''L'', ''M'', ''N'', ''O'', ''P'', ''Q'', ''R'', ''S'', ''T'', ''V'', ''X'', ''Y'', ''Z'' — subsequently
modified and augmented in various ways. In particular, the letters ''K'' and ''W'' are rarely used in most Romance languages — mostly for unassimilated foreign names and words, as they were in late Latin.
While most of the 22 basic Latin letters have maintained their phonetic value, for some of them it has diverged considerably; and the new letters added since the Middle Ages have been put to different uses in different scripts. Some letters, notably ''H'' and ''Q'', have been variously combined in
digraphs or
trigraphs (see below) to represent phonetic phenomena not recorded in Latin, or to get around previously established spelling conventions.
A characteristic feature of the writing systems of almost all Romance languages is that the Latin letters ''C'' and ''G'' — which originally always represented and respectively — represent other sounds when they come before ''E'', ''I'', and in some cases ''Y'' and ''Œ''. This is due to a general
palatalization of and before front vowels like and . This is believed to have occurred in the transition from Classical to Vulgar Latin. Since the written form of all the affected words was tied to the classical language, the shift was accommodated by a change in the pronunciation rules. However, the new sounds of ''C'' and ''G'' in those contexts differ from language to language.
The spelling rules of most Romance languages are fairly complex, and subject to considerable regional variation. To a first approximation, the phonetic representation of non-combined letters can be summarized as follows:
:'C': generally , but "softened" before ''E'', ''I'', or ''Y'' in most Romance languages — to in French, Portuguese, Occitan, Catalan, and American Spanish; to in Peninsular Spanish and Galician; to in Romansh; and to in Italian and Romanian.
:'G': generally or , but "softened" before ''E'', ''I'', or ''Y'' in most languages — to in French, Portuguese, Occitan and Catalan; to or in Spanish (according to dialect); to in Romansh; and to in Italian and Romanian.
:'H': silent in most languages, but represents in Romanian and Gascon Occitan. Used in various digraphs (see below).
:'J': represents in most languages; or in Spanish; in Romansh and in several of Italy's languages, though it is normally replaced with ''I'' in native Italian words.
:'S': normally represents (either
laminal or
apical) at
syllable onset, but usually between vowels. ''s'' is, however, pronounced in Spanish, Romanian, Galician and several varieties of Italian. In the
syllable coda, it may have special
allophonic pronunciations.
:'W': used only in
Walloon. Represents in French, with the exception of words borrowed from English.
:'X': at the beginning of words, represents ) in French, or in Spanish, and in Portuguese, Catalan, and Galician. In position, represents in French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian; in Catalan, French, and Romanian; in Galician and Spanish; in Catalan, Galician and Portuguese; in Venetian, French and Portuguese; or in French and Portuguese. Not used in Italian (except in borrowings), where it is replaced by ''s''.
:'Y': used in French and Spanish for the vowel , and also as a consonant, (esp. in French), , or .
:'Z': in most languages; either or in Galician and Spanish; either or in Italian.
Otherwise, letters that are not combined as digraphs generally have the same sounds as in the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), whose design was, in fact, greatly influenced by the Romance spelling systems.
Digraphs and trigraphs
Since most Romance languages have more sounds than can be accommodated in the Roman Latin alphabet they all resort to the use of digraphs and trigraphs — combinations of two or three letters with a single sound value. The concept (but not the actual combinations) derives from Classical Latin; which used, for example, ''TH'', ''PH'', and ''CH'' when transliterating the Greek letters "θ", "ϕ" (later "φ"), and "χ" (These were once
aspirated sounds in Greek before changing to corresponding fricatives and the
represented what sounded to the Romans like an following , , and respectively. Some of the digraphs used in modern scripts are:
:'CI': used in Italian and Romanian to represent before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''.
:'CH': used in Italian, Romanian, Romansh and Sardinian to represent before ''E'' or ''I''; in Spanish and Galician; in Romansh before ''A'', ''O'' or ''U''; and in most other languages.
:'ÇH': used in Poitevin-Saintongeais for voiceless palatal fricative
:'DD': used in Sicilian and Sardinian to represent the voiced retroflex plosive . In recent history more accurately transcribed as ''DDH''.
:'DJ': used in Walloon for .
:'GI': used in Italian and Romanian to represent before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''.
:'GH': used in Italian, Romanian, Romansh and Sardinian to represent before ''E'' or ''I'', and in Galician for the voiceless pharyngeal fricative (not standard sound).
:'GL': used in Romansh before consonants and at the end of words for .
:'GLI': used in Italian and Romansh for .
:'GN': used in French, Italian and Romansh for , as in ''champignon'' or ''gnocchi''.
:'GU': used before ''E'' or ''I'' to represent or in all Romance languages except Italian and Romanian.
:'LH': used in Portuguese and Occitan .
:'LL': used in Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Norman and Dgèrnésiais, originally for which has merged in some cases with . Represents in French unless it follows ''I'' (''i'') when it represents (or in some dialects). It's used in Occitan for a long
:'ĿL': used in Catalan for a geminate consonant .
:'NH': used in Portuguese and Occitan for , used in official Galician for .
:'NY': used in Catalan for .
:'QU': represents in Italian; in French and Spanish; (before ''e'' or ''i'') or (normally before ''a'' or ''o'') in Portuguese and Catalan.
:'RR': used between vowels in several languages to denote a trilled or a guttural R, instead of the flap .
:'SC': used before ''E'' or ''I'' in Italian for , and in French and Spanish as as in words of certain etymology.
:'SCH': used in Romansh for or .
:'SCI': used in Italian to represent before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''.
:'SH': used in Aranese Occitan for .
:'SS': used in French, Portuguese, Occitan and Catalan for between vowels.
:'TG': used in Romansh for .
:'TH': used in Jèrriais for (as in English "thick"); used in Aranese for either or
:'TSCH': used in Romansh for .
While the digraphs ''CH'', ''PH'', ''RH'' and ''TH'' were at one time used in many words of Greek origin, most languages have now replaced them with ''C/QU'', ''F'', ''R'' and ''T''. Only French has kept these etymological spellings, which now represent or , , and , respectively.
Gemination
For most languages in this family, consonant length is no longer phonemically distinctive or present. The double consonants in French spelling are due to etymology. However, Italian, Sardinian and Sicilian do have long consonants like BB, CC, DD, etc., where the doubling indicates a short hold before the consonant is released, which often has lexical value: e.g. ''note'' ("notes") vs. ''notte'' ("night"). They may even occur at the beginning of words in Romanesco, Neapolitan and Sicilian, and are occasionally written, e.g. Sicilian ''cchiù'' (more), and ''ccà'' (here). In general, the letters ''B'', ''R'' and ''Z'' are long at the start of a word. In Jèrriais, long consonants are marked with an apostrophe: ''S'S'' is a long , ''SS'S'' is a long , and ''T'T'' is a long . In Catalan and Occitan exists a geminate sound written ''ŀl'' (Catalan) or ''ll'' (Occitan), but it is usually pronounced as a simple sound in colloquial (and even some formal) speech in both languages.
Diacritics and special characters
Diacritics common across Romance languages are the acute accent (''á''), the grave accent (''à''), the circumflex accent (''â''), the diaeresis mark (''ü''), and the tilde (''ã''). French spelling includes the etymological ligatures ''œ'' and (more rarely) ''æ''. Romanian has a few diacritics of its own.
An accent mark placed over a vowel generally denotes stress, height, or both. In Spanish, only stress is indicated, with an acute accent. Romanian ''â''/''î'' and ''ă'' are central vowels; stress is not marked in this language. Catalan and Occitan regularly mark stress with an acute accent on high vowels, and with a grave accent on low vowels in a similar but not identical way. Similarly, French ''é'' is a high-mid vowel and French ''è'' is a low-mid vowel, although in French stress is not indicated with diacritics. Italian marks stress with the grave accent, except on high ''e'' and ''o'', which are sometimes marked with an acute accent. Galician marks both stress and height with an acute accent, due to the fact that only stressed vowels can be pronounced low. Portuguese marks stress with the acute accent, except for high ''a'', ''e'', ''o'', which take a circumflex accent.
The cedilla (''ç''), and the diacritical comma ( and , in Romanian) are used to mark sound changes due to historical palatalizations.
Homophones may be differentiated by a grave accent in Italian and French, by an acute accent in Spanish or even both cases may ocur in Portuguese.
Upper and lower case
Most languages are written with a mixture of two distinct but phonetically identical variants or "cases" of the alphabet: majuscule ("uppercase" or "capital letters"), derived from Roman stone-carved letter shapes, and minuscule ("lowercase"), derived from Carolingian writing and Medieval quill pen handwriting which were later adapted by printers in the 15th and 16th centuries.
In particular, all Romance languages presently capitalize (use uppercase for the first letter of) the following words: the first word of each complete sentence, most words in names of people, places, and organizations, and most words in titles of books. The Romance languages do not follow the German practice of capitalizing all nouns including common ones. Unlike English, the names of months (except in European Portuguese), days of the weeks, and derivatives of proper nouns are usually not capitalized: thus, in Italian one capitalizes ''Francia'' ("France") and ''Francesco'' ("Francis"), but not ''francese'' ("French") or ''francescano'' ("Franciscan"). However, each language has some exceptions to this general rule.
Vocabulary comparison
The table below provides a vocabulary comparison that illustrates a number of examples of sound shifts that have occurred between Latin and the main Romance languages, along with a selection of minority languages.
| English | Latin | Catalan | French | Galician | Italian | Norman Jèrriais | Lombard (literary Milanese) | Occitan | Portuguese | Romanian | Romansh | Sardinian | Sicilian | Spanish |
|---|
| Apple | [Mattiana] Mala; Pomum (''fruit'') | Poma | Pomme | Mazá | Mela | Poumme | Pomm/Pumm | Poma | Maçã | Măr | Mail | Mela | Pumu | Manzana / Poma |
| Arm | Bracchium | Braç | Bras | Brazo | Braccio | Bras | Brasc | Braç | Braço | Bra | Bratsch | Bratzu | Vrazzu | Brazo |
| Arrow | Sagitta (''Frankish'' Fleuka) | Fletxa / Sageta | Flèche | Frecha / Seta | Freccia / Saetta | Èrchelle | Frecia | Sageta / Flècha | Seta / Flecha | Săgeată | Frizza | Fretza | Fileccia | Flecha / Saeta |
| Bed | Lectus; Camba (''for sleeping'') | Llit | Lit | Leito / Cama | Letto | Liet | Lecc | Lièch (lièit) | Cama, Leito | Pat[3] | Letg | Lettu | Lettu | Cama / Lecho |
| Black | Nigrum | Negre | Noir | Negro | Nero | Nièr | Negher | Negre | Preto[4] / Negro | Negru | Nair | Nieddu / Nigru | Nìguru / Nìuru | Negro / Prieto |
| Book | Liber (''acc.'' Librum) | Llibre | Livre | Libro | Libro | Livre | Liber/Libor | Libre | Livro | Carte[5] | Cudesch | Libru / Lìburu | Libbru | Libro |
| Breast | Pectus | Pit | Poitrine | Peito | Petto | Estonma | | Pièch (pièit) | Peito | Piept | Pèz | Pettus | Pettu | Pecho |
| Cat | Feles; Cattus[6] | Gat | Chat | Gato | Gatto | Cat | Gatt | Cat (gat, chat) | Gato | Pisică[7] | Giat | Gattu / Battu | Gattu / Jattu | Gato |
| Chair | Sella (''Greek'' Kathedra, ''seat'') | Cadira | Chaise | Cadeira | Sedia | Tchaîse | Cadrega | Cadièra (chadiera, chadèira) | Cadeira[8] | Scaun[9] | Sutga | Cadira / Cadrea | Seggia | Silla |
| Cold | Frigus (''adj.'' Frigidus) | Fred | Froid | Frío | Freddo | Fraid | Fregg | Freg (freid, hred) | Frio | Frig | Fraid | Friu s | Friddu | Frío |
| Cow | Vacca | Vaca | Vache | Vaca | Vacca / Mucca[10] | Vaque | Vaca | Vaca (vacha) | Vaca | Vacă | Vatga | Bacca | Vacca | Vaca |
| Day | Dies (''adj.'' Diurnus) | Dia / Jorn | Jour | Día | Giorno / Dì | Jour | Dì | Jorn / Dia | Dia | Zi | Di | Die | Jornu | Día |
| Dead | Mortuus | Mort | Mort | Morto | Morto | Mort | Mort | Mòrt | Morto | Mort | Mort | Mortu / Mottu | Mortu | Muerto |
| Die | Morior | Morir | Mourir | Morrer | Morire | Mouothi | Morì/Mor | Morir | Morrer | (a) Muri | Murir | Morrer | Muriri / Mòriri | Morir |
| Family | Familia | Família | Famille | Familia | Famiglia | Famil'ye | Familia | Familha | Família | Familie[11] | Famiglia | Famìlia | Famigghia | Familia |
| Finger | Digitus | Dit | Doigt | Dedo | Dito | Dé | Dii | Det | Dedo | Deget | Det | Didu | Jìditu | Dedo |
| Flower | Flos (''acc.'' Florem) | Flor | Fleur | Flor | Fiore | Flieur | Fiôr | Flor | Flor | Floare | Flur | Frore | (S)Ciuri / Hjuri | Flor |
| Give | Dono, -are;
Dare | Donar | Donner | Dar | Dare | Donner / Bailli | Dà | Donar / Dar | Doar[meaning "to donate"] / Dar | (a) Da | Dar | Dare | Dari / Dunari | Donar[ / Dar] |
| Go | Eo, -ire; Ambulare (''to take a walk'') | Anar | Aller | Ir | Andare | Aller | Ndà | Anar | Ir / Andar[meaning "to walk"] | (a) Umbla / (a) Merge[12] | Ir | Andare | Jiri | Ir / Andar |
| Gold | Aurum | Or | Or | Ouro | Oro | Or | Or | Aur | Ouro, Oiro | Aur | Aur | Oru | Oru | Oro |
| Hand | Manus | Mà | Main | Man | Mano | Main | Man | Man | Mão | Mână | Maun | Manu | Manu | Mano |
| High | Altus | Alt | Haut | Alto | Alto | Haut | Olt | Aut / Naut | Alto[13] | Înalt | Aut | Artu / Attu | Àutu | Alto |
| House | Domus; Casa (''hut'') | Casa | Maison[14] | Casa | Casa | Maîson | Cà | Ostal (ostau) / Maison / Casa | Casa | Casă | Chasa | Domu | Casa | Casa |
| I | Ego | Jo | Je | Eu | Io | | Mi | Ieu / Jo | Eu | Eu | Jau | Deu | Iu / Jo / Ju / Eu / Jia | Yo |
| Ink | Atramentum; Tincta (''dye'') | Tinta | Encre | Tinta | Inchiostro | Encre | Nciòster | Tencha (tinta) / Encra | Tinta | Cerneală[15] | Tinta | Tinta | Inga[16] | Tinta |
| January | Januarius | Gener | Janvier | Xaneiro | Gennaio | Janvyi | Ginée / Genar | Genièr (girvèir) | Janeiro | Ianuarie | Schaner | Ghennarzu / Bennarzu | Jinnaru | Enero |
| Juice | Sucus | Suc | Jus | Zume | Succo | Jus | Sugh | Suc | Suco / Sumo | Suc | Suc | Sutzu | Sucu | Jugo / Zumo |
| Key | Clavis (''acc.'' Clavem) | Clau | Clé | Chave | Chiave | Clié | Ciav/Ciau | Clau | Chave | Cheie | Clav | Crae | Chiavi / Ciavi | Llave |
| Man | Homo (''acc.'' Hominem) | Home | Homme | Home | Uomo | Houmme | Omm | Òme | Homem[17] | Om | Um | Homine | Omu / Òminu | Hombre |
| Moon | Luna | Lluna | Lune | Lúa | Luna | Leune | Luna | Luna (lua) | Lua | Lună | Glina | Luna | Luna | Luna |
| English | Latin | Catalan | French | Galician | Italian | Norman Jèrriais | Lombard (literary Milanese) | Occitan | Portuguese | Romanian | Romansh | Sardinian | Sicilian | Spanish |
|---|
| Night | Nox (''acc.'' Noctem) | Nit | Nuit | Noite | Notte | Niet | Nocc/Nott | Nuèch (nuèit) | Noite | Noapte | Notg | Notte | Notti | Noche |
| Old | Senex (''adj.'' Vetus) | Vell | Vieux[18] | Vello[arch. also ''vedro''] | Vecchio | Vyi | Vegg | Vièlh | Velho[ ] | Vechi[19] / Bătrân[20] | Vegl | Betzu / Sèneghe / Vedústus[21] | Vecchiu / Vecciu | Viejo |
| One | Unus | Un | Un | Un | Uno | Ieune | Vun | Un | Um | Unu | In | Unu | Unu | Un / Uno |
| Pear | Pirum | Pera | Poire | Pera | Pera | Paithe | Pera | Pera | Pêra | Pară | Pair | Pira | Piru | Pera |
| Play | Ludo; Jocare (''to joke'') | Jugar | Jouer | Xogar | Giocare | Jouer | Giogà/Giugà | Jogar (jugar, joar) | Jogar | (a se) Juca | Giugar | Zogare | Jucari | Jugar |
| Ring | Anellus | Anell | Anneau | Anel | Anello | Anné / Bague | Anèl | Anèl (anèth, anèu) | Anel | Inel | Anè | Aneddu | Aneddhu | Anillo |
| River | Flumen; Rivus (''small river'') | Riu | Rivière / Fleuve | Río[arch. also ''frume''] | Fiume | Riviéthe | Riva/Riu | Riu / Flume | Rio[ ] | Râu[22]/ Rîu[23] | Flum | Riu / Frùmine | (S)Ciumi / Hjumi | Río |
| Sew | Consuo | Cosir | Coudre | Coser | Cucire | Couôtre | Cusì | Cóser | Coser | (a) Coase | Cuser | Cosire | Cùsiri | Coser |
| Snow | Nix (''acc.'' Nivem) | Neu | Neige | Neve | Neve | Né | Nev | Nèu | Neve | Nea / Zăpadă[24] | Naiv | Nie | Nivi | Nieve |
| Take | Capio; Prehendere (''to catch'') | Agafar / Prendre | Prendre | Prender[meaning "to arrest", "to catch", or "to hold"] | Prendere | Prendre | Ciapà | Prene / Pilhar[ ] | Prender[ ] | (a) Lua[25] | Prender | Pigare[26] | Pigghiari[★ ''pileare''] | Tomar / Prender |
| That | Ille (Eccu + Ille) | Aquell | Quel | Aquel | Quello | Chu | Quell | Aquel (aqueth, aqueu) | Aquele | Acel/Acela | Quel | Kudhu / Kussu[ ] | Chiddhu / Chissu[ ] | Aquél |
| The | -; Ille/Illa/Illud,
Illi/Illae/Illa,
(''acc.'' Illum/Illam/Illud,
Illos/Illas/Illa) | el/la/lo
els/les/los
''Balearic'': es/sa/so
ets/ses/sos[<''ipsu/ipsa''] | le/la
les | o/a
os/as | il/lo/la
i/gli/le | lé/la | el/la
i | lo/la
los/las (lei[s], lu/li) | o/a
os/as | -ul/-a
-i/-le | il/la
ils/las | su/sa
sos/sas (is)[ ] | lu ('u) / la ('a)
li ('i) | el/la/lo
los/las |
| Throw | Jacio; Lanceo, -are (''to throw a weapon''); Adtirare | Llençar | Lancer / Tirer | Lanzar / Guindar | Lanciare | Pitchi | Trà[27] | Lançar | Lançar / Atirar | (a) Arunca[28] | Trair | Ghettare/Bettare | Lanzari / Jittari | Lanzar / Tirar / Echar |
| Thursday | dies Jovis | Dijous | Jeudi | Xoves | Giovedì | Jeudi | Gioedì | Dijòus (dijaus) | Quinta-feira[29] | Joi | Gievgia | Zobia | Jovi / Juvidìa | Jueves |
| Tree | Arbor | Arbre | Arbre | Árbore | Albero | Bouais | Pianta[30]/Albor | Arbre (aubre) | Árvore | Arbore / Pom[31]/ Copac[32] | Planta | Àrvore | Àrvuru | Árbol |
| Two | Duo / Duae | Dos / Dues | Deux | Dous / Dúas | Due | Deux | Duu / Doo | Dos / Doas (dus, duas) | Dois[33] / Duas | Doi | Dua | Duos, Duas | Dui | Dos |
| Urn | Urna | Urna | Urne | Urna | Urna | | Vas | Urna | Urna | Urnă | Urna | Urna | Urna | Urna |
| Voice | Vox (''acc.'' Vocem) | Veu | Voix | Voz | Voce | Vouaix | Vôs | Votz | Voz | Voce, Glas[34] | Vusch | Boghe | Vuci | Voz |
| Where | Ubi (''in-''), Unde (''from-''), Quo (''to-'') | On | Où | Onde / U | Dove | Ioù / Où'est | Ndoe | Ont (dont) | Onde[35] | Unde | Nua | Ue/Aundi | Unni | Donde[36] |
| White | Albus (''Germ.'' Blank) | Blanc | Blanc | Branco | Bianco | Blianc | Bianch | Blanc | Branco[37] | Alb | Alv | Àbru | Biancu / Vrancu / Jancu | Blanco |
| Who | Quis/Quæ (''acc.'' Quem/Quam) | Qui | Qui | Quen | Chi | Tchi | Chi | Qual (quau), Qui, Cu | Quem | Cine | Tgi | Kini/Ki/Chie | Cui (cu') | Quien |
| World | Mundus | Món | Monde | Mundo | Mondo | Monde | Mond/Mund | Mond | Mundo | Lume[38] | Mund | Mundu | Munnu | Mundo |
| Yellow | Flavus (''also meaning "reddish"''); Galbus; Amarellus | Groc | Jaune | Amarelo | Giallo | Jaune | Giald | Jaune | Amarelo | Galben | Mellen | Grogu | Giarnu[39] | Amarillo |
| English | Latin | Catalan | French | Galician | Italian | Norman Jèrriais | Lombard (literary Milanese) | Occitan | Portuguese | Romanian | Romansh | Sardinian | Sicilian | Spanish |
|---|
Classification and related languages
Main articles: Classification of Romance languages, List of Romance languages
The classification of Romance languages is inherently difficult, since most of the linguistic area is a continuum. The Romance languages include 47 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken in Europe; this language group is a part of the Italic language family.
Proposed subfamilies
Here are the main subfamiles that have been proposed within the various classification schemes for Romance languages:
★ Italo-Western, the largest group;
★ Eastern Romance, which includes the languages of Eastern Europe, such as Romanian;
★ Southern Romance, which includes a few languages of southern Italy, such as Sardinian and Sicilian.
Pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages
There are some languages that developed from a mixture of two established Romance languages. It is not always clear whether they should be classified as pidgins, creole languages, or mixed languages. See the main article, for full lists.
Auxiliary and constructed languages
Main articles: Constructed language, International auxiliary language
Latin and the Romance languages also give rise to numerous auxiliary and constructed languages, such as Interlingua, its reformed version Modern Latin,[40] Latino sine flexione, Occidental, Lingua Franca Nova, and Esperanto), as well as languages created for artistic purposes only, such as Brithenig and Wenedyk.
References
1. 1993 Statistical Abstract of Israel reports 250,000 speakers of Romanian in Israel, while the 1995 census puts the total figure of the Israeli population at 5,548,523
2. Reports of about 300,000 Jews who left the country after WW2
3. 4. <''appectoratum''
5. <''carta''
6. unknown origin
7. onomatopoeic
8. also ''sela'' (saddle)
9. <''scamnum''
10. from either ''muggire'' (to moo) or, more likely, ''mungere'' (to milk)
11. Initially ''femeie''; the meaning of the word shifted to "woman". Later, the word ''familie'' was reintroduced from Latin.
12. <''mergere''
13. arch. ''outo''
14. <''mansio''
15. from Slavic ''
★ črъniti''
16. Old Fr. ''enque''
17. arch. ''home''
18. 19. objects, temporal
20. people, <''veteranus''
21. <''vetustus''
22. according to the 1993 orthographic rules
23. according to the 1953 orthographic rules
24. from Slavic ''
★ zapadati''
25. <''levare''
26. <''captiare''
27. <''trahere''
28. <''eruncare''
29. <''quinta feria''
30. <''planta''
31. from ''poamă'', "fruit" (<''poma'')
32. part of the Eastern Romance substratum
33. arch. ''dous''
34. from Slavic ''
★ gols''
35. arch. also ''u''
36. <''de'' + ''onde''; arch. also ''onde''
37. also literary ''alvo''
38. <''lumen''
39. Old Norm. ''jauln'' or Old Fr. ''jalne''
40. Modern Latin
See also
★ Vulgar Latin
★ Latin Union
★ Latin Europe
★ Latin America
★ Interlingua
★ Romance copula
★ Subjunctive
External links
★ Orbis Latinus, site on Romance languages
★ Comparative Verb Conjugations - French, Italian & Spanish
★ Free French & Italian Comparative Tutorial
★ Comparative language learning tool for French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese
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