Monday, June 27, 2016

Comparison of Romance Languages

The Romance languages are related to one another. Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese reveal many similarities in vocabulary. Here is a list of ten words in each language:

milk leche (Spanish) latte (Italian) lait (French) leite (Portuguese)

white blanco (Spanish) bianco (Italian) blanc (French) branco (Portuguese)

world mundo (Spanish) mondo (Italian) monde (French) mundo (Portuguese)

cat gato (Spanish) gatto (Italian) chat (French) gato (Portuguese)

flower flor (Spanish) fiore (Italian) fleur (French) flor (Portuguese)

eye ojo (Spanish) occhio (Italian) oeil (French) olho (Portuguese)

person persona (Spanish) persona (Italian) personne (French) pessoa (Portuguese)

love amor (Spanish) amore (Italian) amour (French) amor (Portuguese)

peace paz (Spanish) pace (Italian) paix (French) paz (Portuguese)

flour harina (Spanish) farina (Italian) farine (French) farinha (Portuguese)

Spanish and Portuguese share the greatest similarity in vocabulary. Of the ten words from this list, Spanish and Portuguese have the same word in five instances. In contrast, Spanish and Italian have the same word in one instance and French shares no words with the other Romance languages listed here. The word for flour starts with an f in every language except Spanish, where it starts with an h. The word for cat starts with a g in every language except French, where it starts with a ch. In all other cases, the words begin with the same letter. This indicates that the Romance languages are closely related to one another.

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