Galician

Galician is a language of northern Spain. It is the Romance language closest to Portuguese. At the same time, it shares more similarities with Spanish than Portuguese does.

The word for person illustrates the relationship of Galician to Spanish and Portuguese. In Spanish, "person" is "persona." In Portuguese, this is "pessoa" and in Galician "persoa."

The numbers from one to ten in Galician also illustrate the relationship to Spanish and Portuguese. Here they are:

Galician: un, dous, tres, catro, cinco, seis, sete, oito, nove, dez
Spanish: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez
Portuguese: um, dois, três, quatro, cinco, seis, sete, oito, nove, dez

The only Galician numbers which are not identical in either Spanish or Portuguese are "un," "dous," and "catro." Six numbers are the same in both Galician and Portuguese and three numbers are the same in Galician and Spanish. In the numbers from one to ten, a closer relationship between Galician and Portuguese can be noted than between Galician and Spanish.

Though many may view Galician as a dialect of either Spanish or Portuguese, it is in fact a language of its own. The Galician language has a vocabulary which is often different from that of Spanish and Portuguese. Nevertheless, it shares many similarities with both languages, particularly Portuguese.