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The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various
modern language A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such ...
s that evolved from
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpar ...
. They are the only extant subgroup of the
Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official langua ...
in the
Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million),
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
(283 million), French (77 million), Italian (67 million) and Romanian (24 million), which are all national languages of their respective countries of origin. By most measures, Sardinian and Italian are the least divergent from Latin, while French has changed the most. However, all Romance languages are closer to each other than to
classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later per ...
. There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found worldwide, mainly in the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with t ...
,
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, and parts of
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. The major Romance languages also have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as linguae francae.M. Paul Lewis,
Summary by language size
, ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth Edition''.
Because it is difficult to assign rigid categories to phenomena such as languages which exist on a continuum, estimates of the number of modern Romance languages vary. For example, Dalby lists 23, based on the criterion of
mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
. The following includes those and additional current, living languages, and one
extinct language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, li ...
, Dalmatian: *
Ibero-Romance The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...
:
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
/ Galician, Asturleonese/
Mirandese The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of t ...
, Spanish, Aragonese, Ladino; *
Occitano-Romance The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/ Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...
: Catalan/
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
, Occitan (lenga d'oc), Gascon (sometimes considered part of Occitan); *
Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Romanc ...
: French/ Oïl languages, Franco-Provençal (Arpitan); *
Rhaeto-Romance Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The qu ...
: Romansh, Ladin, Friulian; *
Gallo-Italic The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...
: Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol; * Venetian (classification disputed); *
Italo-Dalmatian The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia). Italo-Dalmatian can be split into:Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspe ...
: Italian ( Tuscan, Corsican,
Sassarese Sassarese (natively ''sassaresu'' or ''turritanu''; sc, tataresu ) is an Italo-Dalmatian language and transitional variety between Sardinian and Corsican. It is regarded as a Corso–Sardinian language because of Sassari's historic ties wi ...
,
Central Italian Central Italian ( Italian: ''dialetti mediani'') refers to Italo-Romance varieties spoken in the so-called ''Area Mediana'', which covers a swathe of the central Italian peninsula. ''Area Mediana'' is also used in a narrower sense to describe t ...
), Sicilian/ Estreme Southern Italian, Neapolitan/ Southern Italian, Dalmatian (extinct in 1898),
Istriot The Istriot language () is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian branch spoken by about 400 people in the southwestern part of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, particularly in Rovinj and Vodnjan. It should not be confused with the Istria ...
; *
Eastern Romance The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno ...
: Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian; * Sardinian.


Name

The term '' Romance'' derives from the Vulgar Latin adverb , "in
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
", derived from : for instance, in the expression , "to speak in Roman" (that is, the Latin
vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
), contrasted with , "to speak in Latin" (
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin function ...
, the
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...
version of the language used in writing and formal contexts or as a lingua franca), and with , "to speak in
Barbarian A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less ...
" (the non-Latin languages of the peoples living outside the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medit ...
). From this adverb the noun ''romance'' originated, which applied initially to anything written , or "in the Roman vernacular".


Samples

Lexical and grammatical similarities among the Romance languages, and between Latin and each of them, are apparent from the following examples in various Romance
lect In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Ma ...
s, all meaning 'She always closes the window before she dines/before dining'. : : Some of the divergence comes from
semantic change Semantic change (also semantic shift, semantic progression, semantic development, or semantic drift) is a form of language change regarding the evolution of word usage—usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from ...
: where the same root words have developed different meanings. For example, the Portuguese word is descended from Latin "window" (and is thus
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ...
to French , Italian , Romanian and so on), but now means "skylight" and "slit". Cognates may exist but have become rare, such as in Spanish, or dropped out of use entirely. The Spanish and Portuguese terms meaning "to throw through a window" and meaning "replete with windows" also have the same root, but are later borrowings from Latin. Likewise, Portuguese also has the word , a cognate of Italian and Spanish , but uses it in the sense of "to have a late supper" in most varieties, while the preferred word for "to dine" is (related to archaic Spanish "to eat") because of semantic changes in the 19th century. Galician has both (from medieval ''fẽestra'', the ancestor of standard Portuguese ) and the less frequently used and . As an alternative to (originally the genitive form), Italian has the pronoun , a cognate of the other words for "she", but it is hardly ever used in speaking. Spanish, Asturian, and Leonese and Mirandese and Sardinian come from Latin "wind" (cf. English ''window'', etymologically 'wind eye'), and Portuguese , Galician , Mirandese from Latin * "small opening", a derivative of "door". Sardinian (alternative for /) comes from Old Italian and is similar to other Romance languages such as French (from Italian ), Portuguese , Romanian , Spanish , Catalan and Corsican (alternative for ).


Classification and related languages

The classification of the Romance languages is inherently difficult, because most of the linguistic area is a
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
, and in some cases political biases can come into play. Along with Latin (which is not included among the Romance languages) and a few extinct languages of ancient Italy, they make up the Italic branch of the Indo-European family. By most nonhistorical measures, standard Italian is a “central” language (i.e., it is quite close and often readily intelligible to all other Romance languages), whereas French and Romanian are peripheral (they lack similarity to other Romance languages and require more effort for other Romance speakers to understand them).


Proposed divisions

There are various schemes used to subdivide the Romance languages. Three of the most common schemes are as follows: *Italo-Western vs. Eastern vs. Southern. This is the scheme followed by
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
, and is based primarily on the outcome of the ten
monophthong A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
vowels in Classical Latin. This is discussed more
below Below may refer to: * Earth * Ground (disambiguation) * Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than * Temperatures below freezing * Hell or underworld People with the surname *Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general *Fred ...
. *West vs. East. This scheme divides the various languages along the
La Spezia–Rimini Line The La Spezia–Rimini Line (also known as the ''Massa–Senigallia Line''), in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line fr ...
, which runs across north-central Italy just to the north of the city of
Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
(whose speech forms the basis of standard Italian). In this scheme, "East" includes the languages of central and southern Italy, and the Balkan Romance (or "Eastern Romance") languages in Romania, Greece, and elsewhere in the Balkans; "West" includes the languages of Portugal, Spain, France, northern Italy and Switzerland. Sardinian does not easily fit in this scheme. *"
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...
" vs. "innovatory". This is a non-genetic division whose precise boundaries are subject to debate. Generally, the
Gallo-Romance languages The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...
(discussed further below) form the core "innovatory" languages, with standard French generally considered the most innovatory of all, while the languages near the periphery (which include Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian) are "conservative". Sardinian is generally acknowledged the most conservative Romance language, and was also the first language to split off genetically from the rest, possibly as early as the first century BC.
Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...
famously denigrated the
Sardinians The Sardinians, or Sards ( sc, Sardos or ; Italian and Sassarese: ''Sardi''; Gallurese: ''Saldi''), are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy de ...
for the conservativeness of their speech, remarking that they imitate Latin "like monkeys imitate men".


Italo-Western vs. Eastern vs. Sardinian

The main subfamilies that have been proposed by
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
within the various classification schemes for Romance languages are: *
Italo-Western Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages: Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance. It excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance. Italo ...
, the largest group, which includes languages such as Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and French. *
Eastern Romance The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno ...
, which includes the Romance languages of Eastern Europe, such as Romanian. *
Southern Romance The Southern Romance languages are a primary branch of the Romance languages. According to the classification of linguists such as Leonard (1980) and Agard (1984), the Southern Romance family is composed of Sardinian, Corsican, and the souther ...
, which includes a few languages with particularly
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...
features, such as Sardinian and, according to some authors, Corsican as well to a more limited extent. This family is thought to have included the now-vanished Romance languages of
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...
(or at least, they appear to have evolved some phonological features and their vowels in the same way). This three-way division is made primarily based on the outcome of Vulgar Latin (Proto-Romance) vowels: Italo-Western is in turn split along the so-called ''
La Spezia–Rimini Line The La Spezia–Rimini Line (also known as the ''Massa–Senigallia Line''), in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line fr ...
'' in northern Italy, which divides the central and southern Italian languages from the so-called
Western Romance languages Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included. ...
to the north and west. The primary characteristics dividing the two are: *Phonemic
lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
of intervocalic stops, which happens to the northwest but not to the southeast. *De
gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
of geminate stops (producing new intervocalic single voiceless stops, after the old ones were lenited), which again happens to the northwest but not to the southeast. *Deletion of intertonic vowels (between the stressed syllable and either the first or last syllable), again in the northwest but not the southeast. *Use of plurals in /s/ in the northwest vs. plurals using vowel change in the southeast. *Development of palatalized /k/ before /e,i/ to in the northwest vs. in the southeast. *Development of , which develops to > (sometimes progressing further to ) in the northwest but in the southeast. The reality is somewhat more complex. All of the "southeast" characteristics apply to all languages southeast of the line, and all of the "northwest" characteristics apply to all languages in France and (most of) Spain. However, the
Gallo-Italic languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...
are somewhere in between. All of these languages do have the "northwest" characteristics of lenition and loss of gemination. However: *The Gallo‒Italic languages have vowel-changing plurals rather than /s/ plurals. *The
Lombard language Lombard (native name: , Classical Milanese orthography, and . , Ticinese orthography. Modern Western orthography. or ,Eastern unified orthography. depending on the orthography; pronunciation: ) is a language, belonging to the Gallo-Italic famil ...
in north-central Italy and the Rhaeto-Romance languages have the "southeast" characteristic of instead of for palatalized /k/. *The
Venetian language Venetian, wider Venetian or Venetan ( or ) is a Romance language spoken natively in the northeast of Italy,Ethnologue mostly in the Veneto region, where most of the five million inhabitants can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and ofte ...
in northeast Italy and some of the Rhaeto-Romance languages have the "southeast" characteristic of developing to . *Lenition of post-vocalic /p t k/ is widespread as an allophonic phonetic realization in Italy below the La Spezia-Rimini line, including Corsica and most of Sardinia. On top of this, the medieval
Mozarabic language Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
in southern Spain, at the far end of the "northwest" group, may have had the "southeast" characteristics of lack of lenition and palatalization of /k/ to . Certain languages around the
Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...
(e.g. some highland Aragonese dialects) also lack lenition, and northern French dialects such as
Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...
and Picard have palatalization of /k/ to (although this is possibly an independent, secondary development, since /k/ between vowels, i.e. when subject to lenition, developed to /dz/ rather than , as would be expected for a primary development). The usual solution to these issues is to create various nested subgroups. Western Romance is split into the Gallo-Iberian languages, in which lenition happens and which include nearly all the Western Romance languages, and the Pyrenean-Mozarabic group, which includes the remaining languages without lenition (and is unlikely to be a valid
clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
; probably at least two clades, one for Mozarabic and one for Pyrenean). Gallo-Iberian is split in turn into the Iberian languages (e.g. Spanish and
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
), and the larger
Gallo-Romance languages The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...
(stretching from eastern Spain to northeast Italy). Probably a more accurate description, however, would be to say that there was a focal point of innovation located in central France, from which a series of innovations spread out as
areal change In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted t ...
s. The
La Spezia–Rimini Line The La Spezia–Rimini Line (also known as the ''Massa–Senigallia Line''), in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line fr ...
represents the farthest point to the southeast that these innovations reached, corresponding to the northern chain of the
Apennine Mountains The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or  – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which wou ...
, which cuts straight across northern Italy and forms a major geographic barrier to further language spread. This would explain why some of the "northwest" features (almost all of which can be characterized as innovations) end at differing points in northern Italy, and why some of the languages in geographically remote parts of Spain (in the south, and high in the Pyrenees) are lacking some of these features. It also explains why the languages in France (especially standard French) seem to have innovated earlier and more extensively than other Western Romance languages. Many of the "southeast" features also apply to the Eastern Romance languages (particularly, Romanian), despite the geographic discontinuity. Examples are lack of lenition, maintenance of intertonic vowels, use of vowel-changing plurals, and palatalization of /k/ to . This has led some researchers, following Walther von Wartburg, to postulate a basic two-way east–west division, with the "Eastern" languages including Romanian and central and southern Italian, although this view is troubled by the contrast of numerous Romanian phonological developments with those found in Italy below the La Spezia-Rimini line. Among these features, in Romanian geminates reduced historically to single units, and /kt/ developed into /pt/, whereas in central and southern Italy geminates are preserved and /kt/ underwent assimilation to /tt/. Despite being the first Romance language to diverge from spoken Latin, Sardinian does not fit at all into this sort of division. It is clear that Sardinian became linguistically independent from the remainder of the Romance languages at an extremely early date, possibly already by the first century BC. Sardinian contains a large number of archaic features, including total lack of palatalization of /k/ and /ɡ/ and a large amount of vocabulary preserved nowhere else, including some items already archaic by the time of Classical Latin (first century BC). Sardinian has plurals in /s/ but post-vocalic lenition of voiceless consonants is normally limited to the status of an allophonic rule (e.g. 'ane'' 'dog' but ''su'' 'ane'' or ''su'' 'ane'' 'the dog'), and there are a few innovations unseen elsewhere, such as a change of /au/ to /a/. Use of ''su'' < ''ipsum'' as an article is a retained archaic feature that also exists in the Catalan of the
Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital i ...
and that used to be more widespread in Occitano-Romance, and is known as ' (literally the "salted article"), while Sardinian shares develarisation of earlier /kw/ and /ɡw/ with Romanian: Sard. ''abba'', Rum. ''apă'' 'water'; Sard. ''limba'', Rom. ''limbă'' 'language' (cf. Italian ''acqua'', ''lingua'').


= Dialects of southern Italy, Sardinia and Corsica

= The Sardinian-type vowel system is also found in a small region belonging to the (also known as '' Lausberg zone''; compare ) of southern Italy, in southern
Basilicata it, Lucano (man) it, Lucana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...
, and there is evidence that the Romanian-type "compromise" vowel system was once characteristic of most of southern Italy, although it is now limited to a small area in western Basilicata centered on the Castelmezzano dialect, the area being known as , the German word for 'outpost'. The Sicilian vowel system, now generally thought to be a development based on the Italo-Western system, is also represented in southern Italy, in southern
Cilento Cilento is an Italian geographical region of Campania in the central and southern part of the Province of Salerno and an important tourist area of southern Italy. Cilento is known as one of the centers of Mediterranean diet. Geography The co ...
,
Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
and the southern tip of
Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...
, and may have been more widespread in the past. The greatest variety of vowel systems outside of southern Italy is found in Corsica, where the Italo-Western type is represented in most of the north and center and the Sardinian type in the south, as well as a system resembling the Sicilian vowel system (and even more closely the Carovignese system) in the
Cap Corse Cap Corse (; co, Capicorsu, ; it, Capo Corso, ), a geographical area of Corsica, is a long peninsula located at the northern tip of the island. At the base of it is the second largest city in Corsica, Bastia. Cap Corse is also a Communaut� ...
region; finally, in between the Italo-Western and Sardinian system is found, in the Taravo region, a unique vowel system that cannot be derived from any other system, which has reflexes like Sardinian for the most part, but the short high vowels of Latin are uniquely reflected as mid-low vowels. Compar
comment 1 at the blog Language Hat
an
comment 2


Gallo-Romance languages

Gallo-Romance can be divided into the following subgroups: *The
Langues d'oïl The ''langues d'oïl'' (; ) are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. These belong to the large ...
, including French and closely related languages. *The
Franco-Provençal language Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is sepa ...
(also known as Arpitan) of southeastern France, western Switzerland, and
Aosta Valley , Valdostan or Valdotainian it, Valdostano (man) it, Valdostana (woman)french: Valdôtain (man)french: Valdôtaine (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = Official languages , population_blank1 = Italian French ...
region of northwestern Italy. The following groups are also sometimes considered part of Gallo-Romance: *The
Occitano-Romance languages The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...
of southern France, namely
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts ...
and Gascon. **The Catalan language of eastern Iberia is also sometimes included in Gallo-Romance. This is however disputed by some linguists who prefer to group it with Iberian Romance, since although Old Catalan is close to Old Occitan, it later adjusted its lexicon to some degree to align with Spanish. In general however, modern Catalan, especially grammatically, remains closer to modern Occitan than to either Spanish or Portuguese. *The
Gallo-Italian languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...
of northern Italy, including Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian and Romagnol. Ligurian retains the final -o, being the exception in Gallo-Romance. *The
Rhaeto-Romance languages Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The qu ...
, including Romansh, and Friulian, and Ladin dialects. The Gallo-Romance languages are generally considered the most innovative (least conservative) among the Romance languages. Characteristic Gallo-Romance features generally developed earliest and appear in their most extreme manifestation in the
Langue d'oïl Langue is a municipality in the Valle Department, Honduras. The town is located near the border of El Salvador and is a regional Hammock making center. Most of the town is made up of sharecroppers and day laborers. There are usually Mormon mis ...
, gradually spreading out along riverways and transalpine roads. In some ways, however, the Gallo-Romance languages are conservative. The older stages of many of the languages preserved a two-case system consisting of nominative and oblique, fully marked on nouns, adjectives and determiners, inherited almost directly from the Latin nominative and accusative and preserving a number of different declensional classes and irregular forms. The languages closest to the oïl epicenter preserve the case system the best, while languages at the periphery lose it early. Notable characteristics of the Gallo-Romance languages are: *Early loss of unstressed final vowels other than — a defining characteristic of the group. **Further reductions of final vowels in
Langue d'oïl Langue is a municipality in the Valle Department, Honduras. The town is located near the border of El Salvador and is a regional Hammock making center. Most of the town is made up of sharecroppers and day laborers. There are usually Mormon mis ...
and many
Gallo-Italic languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...
, with the feminine and prop vowel merging into , which is often subsequently dropped. *Early, heavy reduction of unstressed vowels in the interior of a word (another defining characteristic). *Loss of final vowels phonemicized the long vowels that used to be automatic concomitants of stressed open syllables. These phonemic long vowels are maintained directly in many Northern Italian dialects; elsewhere, phonemic length was lost, but in the meantime many of the long vowels diphthongized, resulting in a maintenance of the original distinction. The langue d'oïl branch is again at the forefront of innovation, with no less than five of the seven long vowels diphthongizing (only high vowels were spared). *
Front rounded vowel A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded. The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include: * , a close front rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel") * , a near-close front rounded vowel (or ...
s are present in all branches of Gallo-Romance. usually fronts to , and secondary mid front rounded vowels often develop from long or . *Extreme lenition (i.e. multiple rounds of lenition) occurs in many languages especially in
Langue d'oïl Langue is a municipality in the Valle Department, Honduras. The town is located near the border of El Salvador and is a regional Hammock making center. Most of the town is made up of sharecroppers and day laborers. There are usually Mormon mis ...
and many
Gallo-Italian languages The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...
. *The
Langue d'oïl Langue is a municipality in the Valle Department, Honduras. The town is located near the border of El Salvador and is a regional Hammock making center. Most of the town is made up of sharecroppers and day laborers. There are usually Mormon mis ...
, Swiss
Rhaeto-Romance languages Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The qu ...
and many of the northern dialects of Occitan have a secondary
palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation ...
of and before , producing different results from the primary Romance palatalization: e.g. ''centum'' "hundred" > ''cent'' , ''cantum'' "song" > ''chant'' . *Other than the
Occitano-Romance languages The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...
, most Gallo-Romance languages are subject-obligatory (whereas all the rest of the Romance languages are
pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite int ...
languages). This is a late development triggered by progressive phonetic erosion: Old French was still a null-subject language, and this only changed upon loss of secondarily final consonants in Middle French.


Pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages

Some Romance languages have developed varieties which seem dramatically restructured as to their grammars or to be mixtures with other languages. There are several dozens of creoles of French, Spanish, and
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
origin, some of them spoken as
national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the ...
s and lingua franca in former European colonies. Creoles of French: *
Antillean The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...
(
French Antilles The French West Indies or French Antilles (french: Antilles françaises, ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy fwansez) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe, ...
,
Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindia ...
,
Dominica Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographicall ...
; majority native language) * Haitian (one of
Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, an ...
's two official languages and majority native language) *
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
(US) *
Mauritian Mauritians (singular Mauritian; french: Mauricien; Creole: ''Morisien'') are nationals or natives of the Republic of Mauritius and their descendants. Mauritius is a multi-ethnic society, with notable groups of people of South Asian (notably I ...
(''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' of
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It inc ...
) *
Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
(native language of
Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
) * Seychellois (
Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, ...
' official language) Creoles of Spanish: *
Chavacano Chavacano or Chabacano is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of speakers ...
(in part of
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
) *
Palenquero Palenquero (sometimes spelled Palenkero) or Palenque ( pln, Lengua) is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in Colombia. It is believed to be a mixture of Kikongo (a language spoken in central Africa in the current countries of Congo, DRC, Ga ...
(in part of
Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Cari ...
) Creoles of Portuguese: * Angolar (regional language in São Tomé and Principe) * Cape Verdean (
Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...
's national language and lingua franca; includes several distinct varieties) * Daman and Diu Creole (regional language in
India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
) * Forro (regional language in São Tomé and Príncipe) * Kristang (
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Malay ...
and
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bo ...
) * Kristi (regional language in India) * Macanese (
Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a popu ...
) *
Papiamento Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), with official status in Aruba ...
(
Dutch Antilles Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People ...
official language, majority native language, and lingua franca) *
Guinea-Bissau Creole Guinea-Bissau Creole, also known as Kiriol or Crioulo, is a creole language whose lexicon derives mostly from Portuguese. It is spoken in Guinea Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia. It is also called by its native speakers as , , or . Guinea-Biss ...
(
Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...
's national language and lingua franca)


Auxiliary and constructed languages

Latin and the Romance languages have also served as the inspiration and basis of numerous auxiliary and constructed languages, so-called "Neo-Romance languages". The concept was first developed in 1903 by Italian mathematician
Giuseppe Peano Giuseppe Peano (; ; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much notation. The st ...
, under the title
Latino sine flexione Latino sine flexione (" Latin without inflections"), Interlingua de Academia pro Interlingua (IL de ApI) or Peano's Interlingua (abbreviated as IL), is an international auxiliary language compiled by the Academia pro Interlingua under chairmans ...
.Peano, Giuseppe (1903)
"De Latino Sine Flexione. Lingua Auxiliare Internationale"
''Revista de Mathematica'' (''Revue de Mathématiques''), Tomo VIII, pp. 74–83. Fratres Bocca Editores: Torino.
He wanted to create a ''naturalistic'' international language, as opposed to an autonomous constructed language like
Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international commun ...
or
Volapük Volapük (; , "Language of the World", or lit. "World Speak") is a constructed language created between 1879 and 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Catholic priest in Baden, Germany, who believed that God had told him in a dream to create an i ...
which were designed for maximal simplicity of lexicon and derivation of words. Peano used Latin as the base of his language because, as he described it, Latin had been the international scientific language until the end of the 18th century. Other languages developed include
Idiom Neutral Idiom Neutral is an international auxiliary language, published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language () under the leadership of Waldemar Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg engineer. History The Academy had its origin as ...
(1902),
Interlingue Interlingue (; ISO 639 ''ie'', ''ile''), originally Occidental (), is an international auxiliary language created in 1922 and renamed in 1949. Its creator, Edgar de Wahl, sought to achieve maximal grammatical regularity and natural character ...
-Occidental (1922),
Interlingua Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is ...
(1951) and
Lingua Franca Nova Lingua Franca Nova (), abbreviated as LFN and known colloquially as Elefen, is an auxiliary constructed language originally created by C. George Boeree of Shippensburg University, Pennsylvania, and further developed by many of its users. Its ...
(1998). The most famous and successful of these is Interlingua. Each of these languages has attempted to varying degrees to achieve a pseudo-Latin vocabulary as common as possible to living Romance languages. Some languages have been constructed specifically for communication among speakers of Romance languages, the Pan-Romance languages. There are also languages created for artistic purposes only, such as Talossan. Because Latin is a very well attested ancient language, some amateur linguists have even constructed Romance languages that mirror real languages that developed from other ancestral languages. These include Brithenig (which mirrors Welsh), Breathanach (mirrors Irish), Wenedyk (mirrors
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
), Þrjótrunn (mirrors Icelandic), and Helvetian (mirrors German).


Modern status

The Romance language most widely spoken natively today is Spanish, followed by
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
, French, Italian and Romanian, which together cover a vast territory in Europe and beyond, and work as
official An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their su ...
and
national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the ...
s in dozens of countries. French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian are also official languages of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...
. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan were the official languages of the defunct
Latin Union The Latin Union is an international organization of nations that use Romance languages, whose activities have been suspended since 2012. Headquartered in Paris, France, its aim is to protect, project, and promote the common cultural heritage of ...
; and French and Spanish are two of the six official languages of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
. Outside Europe, French,
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
and Spanish are spoken and enjoy official status in various countries that emerged from the respective
colonial empire A colonial empire is a collective of territories (often called colonies), either contiguous with the imperial center or located overseas, settled by the population of a certain state and governed by that state. Before the expansion of early mod ...
s. Spanish is an official language in
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
and in nine countries of
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
, home to about half that continent's population; in six countries of
Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
(all except
Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a w ...
); and in
Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Gua ...
. In the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, it is official in
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbe ...
, the
Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...
, and
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
. In all these countries,
Latin American Spanish The different varieties of the Spanish language spoken in the Americas are distinct from each other as well as from those varieties spoken in the Iberian peninsula, collectively known as Peninsular Spanish and Spanish spoken elsewhere, such as in ...
is the vernacular language of the majority of the population, giving Spanish the most native speakers of any Romance language. In Africa it is one of the official languages of
Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...
.. Portuguese, in its original homeland,
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the ...
, is spoken by virtually the entire population of 10 million. As the official language of
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, it is spoken by more than 200 million people in that country, as well as by neighboring residents of eastern Paraguay and northern Uruguay, accounting for a little more than half the population of South America, thus making Portuguese the most spoken official Romance language in a single country. It is the official language of six African countries (
Angola , national_anthem = "Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...
,
Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...
,
Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...
,
Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Mal ...
,
Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...
, and
São Tomé and Príncipe São Tomé and Príncipe (; pt, São Tomé e Príncipe (); English: " Saint Thomas and Prince"), officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe ( pt, República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe), is a Portuguese-speaking ...
), and is spoken as a primary language by perhaps 30 million residents of that continent, most of them second-language speakers. In Asia, Portuguese is co-official with other languages in
East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-wes ...
and
Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a popu ...
, while most Portuguese-speakers in Asia—some 400,000—are in
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
due to return immigration of
Japanese Brazilian , , lead=yes are Brazilian citizens who are nationals or naturals of Japanese ancestry or Japanese immigrants living in Brazil or Japanese people of Brazilian ancestry. The first group of Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in 1908. Brazil i ...
s. In North America 1,000,000 people speak Portuguese as their home language. In Oceania, Portuguese is the second most spoken Romance language, after French, due mainly to the number of speakers in
East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-wes ...
. Its closest relative, Galician, has official status in the
autonomous community eu, autonomia erkidegoa ca, comunitat autònoma gl, comunidade autónoma oc, comunautat autonòma an, comunidat autonoma ast, comunidá autónoma , alt_name = , map = , category = Autonomous administra ...
of Galicia in
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
, together with Spanish. Outside Europe, French is spoken natively most in the Canadian province of
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen ...
, and in parts of
New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English an ...
and
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. Canada is officially bilingual, with French and English being the official languages. In parts of the Caribbean, such as
Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, an ...
, French has official status, but most people speak creoles such as
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...
as their native language. French also has official status in much of Africa, with relatively few native speakers but larger numbers of second language speakers. French is spoken by around 200 to 300 million people in 2022 according to
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
and the OIF. In
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, French is spoken by 71 million native speakers and nearly 200 million Europeans can speak French, making French, the second most spoken language in Europe after
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
. French is also the second most studied language in the world behind
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, with about 130 million learners in 2017. Although
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
also had some colonial possessions before
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, its language did not remain official after the end of the colonial domination. As a result, Italian outside of Italy and Switzerland is now spoken only as a minority language by immigrant communities in
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country b ...
. In some former Italian colonies in Africa—namely
Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
,
Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
and
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
—it is spoken by a few educated people in commerce and government.
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
did not establish a colonial empire, and the native range of Romanian includes not only the former Soviet republic of
Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
, where it is the dominant language and spoken by a majority of the population, but neighboring areas in Serbia (
Vojvodina Vojvodina ( sr-Cyrl, Војводина}), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capita ...
and the
Bor District The Bor District ( sr, Борски округ, Borski okrug, ) is one of nine administrative districts of Southern and Eastern Serbia. It has a population of 123,848 inhabitants, according to the 2011 census results. The administrative center ...
), Bulgaria, Hungary, and Ukraine (
Bukovina Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter Berge ...
,
Budjak Budjak or Budzhak ( Bulgarian and Ukrainian: Буджак; ro, Bugeac; Gagauz and Turkish: ''Bucak''), historically part of Bessarabia until 1812, is a historical region in Ukraine and Moldova. Lying along the Black Sea between the Danub ...
) and in some villages between the
Dniester The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and th ...
and Bug rivers. As with Italian, Romanian is spoken outside of its ethnic range by immigrant communities, such as other European countries (notably
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
, and
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the ...
, where in all three of which Romanian-speakers form about two percent of the population), as well as to
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
by Romanian Jews, where it is the native language of five percent of the population, and is spoken by many more as a secondary language. The
Aromanian language The Aromanian language (, , , or ), also known as Macedo-Romanian or Vlach, is an Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian, spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vla ...
is spoken today by
Aromanians The Aromanians ( rup, Armãnji, Rrãmãnji) are an ethnic group native to the southern Balkans who speak Aromanian, an Eastern Romance language. They traditionally live in central and southern Albania, south-western Bulgaria, northern and ...
in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, and Greece. The total of 880 million native speakers of Romance languages (ca. 2020) are divided as follows: * Spanish 54% (475 million, plus 75 million L2 for 550 million
Hispanophone Hispanophone and Hispanic refers to anything relating to the Spanish language (the Hispanosphere). In a cultural, rather than merely linguistic sense, the notion of "Hispanophone" goes further than the above definition. The Hispanic culture is t ...
s) *
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
26% (230 million, plus 30 million L2 for 260 million
Lusophone Lusophones ( pt, Lusófonos) are peoples that speak Portuguese as a native or as common second language and nations where Portuguese features prominently in society. Comprising an estimated 270 million people spread across 10 sovereign countries ...
s) * French 9% (80 million, plus 195 million L2 for 275 million
Francophone French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the ...
s) * Italian 7% (65 million, plus 3 million L2) * Romanian 3% (24 million) * Catalan 0.5% (4 million, plus 5 million L2) *Others 3% (26 million, nearly all bilingual in one of the national languages) Catalan is the official language of
Andorra , image_flag = Flag of Andorra.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Andorra.svg , symbol_type = Coat of arms , national_motto = la, Virtus Unita Fortior, label=none ( Latin)"United virtue is str ...
. In Spain, it is co-official with Spanish in
Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...
, the
Valencian Community The Valencian Community ( ca-valencia, Comunitat Valenciana, es, Comunidad Valenciana) is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid with ...
(under the name
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
), and the
Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital i ...
, and it is recognized, but not official, in an area of
Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces (from north to so ...
known as
La Franja La Franja (; "The Strip"; an, Francha ) is the area of Catalan-speaking territories of eastern Aragon bordering Catalonia, in Spain. It literally means ''"the strip"'' and can also more properly be called (Aragonese Strip), (Western Strip) or ...
. In addition, it is spoken by many residents of
Alghero Alghero (; ca, label= Alguerese, L'Alguer ; sc, S'Alighèra ; sdc, L'Aliera ) is a city of about 45,000 inhabitants in the Italian insular province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the Mediterranean Sea. The city's name comes from ...
, on the island of
Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian language, Italian, Corsican language, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese dialect, Algherese and Catalan languag ...
, and it is co-official in that city. Galician, with more than a million native speakers, is official together with Spanish in Galicia, and has legal recognition in neighbouring territories in
Castilla y León Castile, Castille or Castilla may refer to: Places Spain *Castile (historical region), a vaguely defined historical region of Spain covering most of Castile and León, all of the Community of Madrid and most of Castilla–La Mancha *Kingdom of ...
. A few other languages have official recognition on a regional or otherwise limited level; for instance, Asturian and Aragonese in Spain;
Mirandese The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of t ...
in Portugal; Friulian, Sardinian and
Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is sepa ...
in Italy; and Romansh in Switzerland. 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 as a potential source of
separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...
movements; therefore, they have generally fought to eliminate it, by extensively promoting the use of the official language, restricting the use of the other languages in the media, recognizing them as mere "dialects", or even persecuting them. As a result, all of these languages are considered endangered to varying degrees according to the UNESCO
Red Book of Endangered Languages The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' is an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after a ...
, ranging from "vulnerable" (e.g. Sicilian and Venetian) to "severely endangered" (
Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is sepa ...
, most of the
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts ...
varieties). Since the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, increased sensitivity to the rights of minorities has allowed some of these languages to start recovering their prestige and lost rights. Yet it is unclear whether these political changes will be enough to reverse the decline of minority Romance languages.


History

Romance languages are the continuation of
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpar ...
, the popular and colloquial
sociolect In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acquis ...
of
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
spoken by
soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
s, settlers, and
merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as industry ...
s of the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medit ...
, as distinguished from the classical form of the language spoken by the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
upper classes, the form in which the language was generally written. Between 350 BC and 150 AD, the expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, made Latin the dominant native language in continental Western Europe. Latin also exerted a strong influence in southeastern Britain, the Roman province of Africa,
western Germany The old states of Germany (german: die alten Länder) is a jargon referring to the ten of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) that were part of West Germany and that unified with the eastern German Democratic Republic ...
,
Pannonia Pannonia (, ) was a province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located in the territory that is now ...
and the whole
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
. During the Empire's decline, and after its fragmentation and the collapse of its Western half in the fifth and sixth centuries, the spoken varieties of Latin became more isolated from each other, with the western dialects coming under heavy Germanic influence (the Goths and Franks in particular) and the eastern dialects coming under Slavic influence. The dialects diverged from classical Latin at an accelerated rate and eventually evolved into a continuum of recognizably different typologies. The colonial empires established by
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
, and
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
from the fifteenth century onward spread their languages to the other continents to such an extent that about two-thirds of all Romance language speakers today live outside Europe. Despite other influences (e.g. ''
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or su ...
'' from pre-Roman languages, especially
Continental Celtic languages The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Contine ...
; and ''
superstratum In linguistics, a stratum ( Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or ...
'' from later Germanic or Slavic invasions), the
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, morphology, and
lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or for w ...
of all Romance languages consist mainly of evolved forms of Vulgar Latin. However, some notable differences occur between today's Romance languages and their Roman ancestor. With only one or two exceptions, Romance languages have lost the
declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...
system of Latin and, as a result, have SVO sentence structure and make extensive use of
prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
.


Vulgar Latin

Documentary evidence is limited about Vulgar Latin for the purposes of comprehensive research, and the literature is often hard to interpret or generalize. Many of its speakers were soldiers, slaves, displaced peoples, and forced resettlers, more likely to be natives of conquered lands than natives of Rome. In Western Europe, Latin gradually replaced Celtic and other
Italic languages The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official langua ...
, which were related to it by a shared Indo-European origin. Commonalities in syntax and vocabulary facilitated the adoption of Latin. Vulgar Latin is believed to have already had most of the features shared by all Romance languages, which distinguish them from
Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later per ...
, such as the almost complete loss of the Latin
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
system and its replacement by
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s; the loss of the neuter
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
and comparative inflections; replacement of some
verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descrip ...
paradigms by innovations (e.g. the synthetic future gave way to an originally analytic strategy now typically formed by infinitive + evolved present indicative forms of 'have'); the use of articles; and the initial stages of the
palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation ...
of the plosives /k/, /ɡ/, and /t/. To some scholars, this suggests the form of Vulgar Latin that evolved into the Romance languages was around during the time of the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medit ...
(from the end of the first century BC), and was spoken alongside the written Classical Latin which was reserved for official and formal occasions. Other scholars argue that the distinctions are more rightly viewed as indicative of sociolinguistic and register differences normally found within any language. Both were mutually intelligible as one and the same language, which was true until very approximately the second half of the 7th century. However, within two hundred years Latin became a
dead language An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...
since "the Romanized people of Europe could no longer understand texts that were read aloud or recited to them," i.e. Latin had ceased to be a
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother ton ...
and became a foreign language that had to be learned, if the label Latin is constrained to refer to a state of the language frozen in past time and restricted to linguistic features for the most part typical of higher registers. With the rise of the Roman Empire, Vulgar Latin spread first throughout Italy and then through
southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, ...
, western, central, and
southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia ...
, and
northern Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...
along parts of
western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes An ...
.


Fall of the Western Roman Empire

During the political decline of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, there were large-scale
migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum l ...
s into the empire, and the Latin-speaking world was fragmented into several independent states. Central Europe and the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
were occupied by Germanic and Slavic tribes, as well as by
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
. These incursions isolated the
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Eas ...
from the rest of
Romance-speaking Europe Most languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. Within Indo-European, the three largest phyla are Ro ...
.
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
and
African Romance African Romance or African Latin is an extinct Romance language that was spoken in the Roman province of Africa by the Roman Africans during the later Roman and early Byzantine Empires, and several centuries after the annexation of the region ...
—the forms of Vulgar Latin used in
Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
and the Roman province of Africa, where it had been spoken by much of the urban population—disappeared in the Middle Ages (as did
Pannonian Romance Pannonian Romance was spoken by Romanized Celtic and Illyrian peoples that developed in Pannonia, between modern-day Vienna and Belgrade, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Despite the Romanized population being mentioned in sev ...
in what is now Hungary, and Moselle Romance in Germany). But the Germanic tribes that had penetrated
Roman Italy Roman Italy (called in both the Latin and Italian languages referring to the Italian Peninsula) was the homeland of the ancient Romans and of the Roman empire. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to ...
,
Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the Eas ...
, and
Hispania Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: His ...
eventually adopted Latin/Romance and the remnants of the
culture of ancient Rome The culture of ancient Rome existed throughout the almost 1200-year history of the civilization of Ancient Rome. The term refers to the culture of the Roman Republic, later the Roman Empire, which at its peak covered an area from present-da ...
alongside existing inhabitants of those regions, and so Latin remained the dominant language there. In part due to regional dialects of the Latin language and local environments, several languages evolved from it.


Fall of the Eastern Roman empire

Meanwhile, large-scale
migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum l ...
s into the Eastern
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medit ...
started with the
Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europ ...
and continued with
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
, Avars,
Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. They became known as nom ...
,
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, m ...
,
Pechenegs The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პაჭ ...
,
Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and  ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Uralic ...
and
Cumans The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many so ...
. The invasions of
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, m ...
were the most thoroughgoing, and they partially reduced the Romanic element in the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
. The invasion of the
Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...
and conquest of
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth ( Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
in 1453 marked the end of the empire. The
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, m ...
named the Romance-speaking population
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Eas ...
, while the latter called themselves "Rumân" or "Român", from the Latin "Romanus". The Daco-Roman dialect became fully distinct from the three dialects spoken South of the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
—Aromanian, Istro-Romanian, and Megleno-Romanian—during the ninth and tenth centuries, when the
Romanians The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Roman ...
(sometimes called
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Eas ...
or Wallachians) emerged as a people.


Early Romance

Over the course of the fourth to eighth centuries, local changes in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon accumulated to the point that the speech of any locale was noticeably different from another. In principle, differences between any two lects increased the more they were separated geographically, reducing easy mutual intelligibility between speakers of distant communities. Clear evidence of some levels of change is found in the '' Reichenau Glosses'', an eighth-century compilation of about 1,200 words from the fourth-century
Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels ...
of
Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is com ...
that had changed in phonological form or were no longer normally used, along with their eighth-century equivalents in proto-
Franco-Provençal Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy. Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is sepa ...
. The following are some examples with reflexes in several modern Romance languages for comparison: In all of the above examples, the words appearing in the fourth century Vulgate are the same words as would have been used in
Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later per ...
of c. 50 BC. It is likely that some of these words had already disappeared from casual speech by the time of the ''Glosses''; but if so, they may well have been still widely understood, as there is no recorded evidence that the common people of the time had difficulty understanding the language. By the 8th century, the situation was very different. During the late 8th century,
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...
, holding that "Latin of his age was by classical standards intolerably corrupt", successfully imposed
Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later per ...
as an artificial written vernacular for
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. Unfortunately, this meant that parishioners could no longer understand the sermons of their priests, forcing the Council of Tours in 813 to issue an edict that priests needed to translate their speeches into the ''rustica romana lingua'', an explicit acknowledgement of the reality of the Romance languages as separate languages from Latin. By this time, and possibly as early as the 6th century according to Price (1984), the Romance
lect In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Ma ...
s had split apart enough to be able to speak of separate
Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Romanc ...
,
Ibero-Romance The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...
, Italo-Romance and
Eastern Romance languages The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-R ...
. Some researchers have postulated that the major divergences in the spoken dialects began or accelerated considerably in the 5th century, as the formerly widespread and efficient communication networks of the
Western Roman Empire The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period fr ...
rapidly broke down, leading to the total disappearance of the Western Roman Empire by the end of the century. The critical period between the 5th–10th centuries AD is poorly documented because little or no writing from the chaotic " Dark Ages" of the 5th–8th centuries has survived, and writing after that time was in consciously classicized
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin function ...
, with vernacular writing only beginning in earnest in the 11th or 12th century. An exception such as the
Oaths of Strasbourg The Oaths of Strasbourg were a military pact made on 14 February 842 by Charles the Bald and Louis the German against their older brother Lothair I, the designated heir of Louis the Pious, the successor of Charlemagne. One year later the Treat ...
is evidence that by the ninth century effective communication with a non-learnèd audience was carried out in evolved Romance. A language that was closely related to medieval Romanian was spoken during the Dark Ages by
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Eas ...
in the Balkans, Herzegovina, Dalmatia (
Morlachs Morlachs ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Morlaci, Морлаци or , ; it, Morlacchi; ro, Morlaci) has been an exonym used for a rural Christian community in Herzegovina, Lika and the Dalmatian Hinterland. The term was initially used for a bilingual Vlach pa ...
), Ukraine (
Hutsuls The Hutsuls (sometimes the spelling variant: Gutsuls; uk, Гуцули, translit=Hutsuly; pl, Huculi, Hucułowie; ro, huțuli) are an ethnic group spanning parts of western Ukraine and Romania (i.e. parts of Bukovina and Maramureș). Th ...
), Poland (
Gorals The Gorals ( pl, Górale; Goral dialect: ''Górole''; sk, Gorali; Cieszyn Silesia dialect, Cieszyn Silesian: ''Gorole''), also known as the Highlanders (in Poland as the Polish Highlanders) are an indigenous ethnographic or ethnic group primar ...
), Slovakia, and Czech Moravia, but gradually these communities lost their maternal language.


Recognition of the vernaculars

Between the 10th and 13th centuries, some local
vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
s developed a written form and began to supplant Latin in many of its roles. In some countries, such as
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the ...
, this transition was expedited by force of law; whereas in others, such as
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, many prominent poets and writers used the vernacular of their own accord – some of the most famous in Italy being
Giacomo da Lentini Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini or with the appellative Il Notaro, was an Italian poet of the 13th century. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Gi ...
and
Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...
. Well before that, the vernacular was also used for practical purposes, such as the testimonies in the
Placiti Cassinesi The Placiti Cassinesi are four official juridical documents written between 960 and 963 in southern Italy, regarding a dispute on several lands among three Benedictine monasteries and a local landowner. They are considered the first extant docume ...
, written 960–963.


Uniformization and standardization

The invention of the
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
brought a tendency towards greater uniformity of
standard language A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includ ...
s within political boundaries, at the expense of other Romance languages and
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s less favored politically. In France, for instance, the dialect spoken in the region of Paris gradually spread to the entire country, and the
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts ...
of the south lost ground.


Sound changes


Consonants

Significant
sound change A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic cha ...
s affected the consonants of the Romance languages.


Apocope

There was a tendency to eliminate final consonants in Vulgar Latin, either by dropping them (
apocope In phonology, apocope () is the loss (elision) of a word-final vowel. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any final sound (including consonants) from a word. Etymology ''Apocope'' comes from the Greek () from () "cutting off", from ...
) or adding a vowel after them (
epenthesis In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable ('' paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epe ...
). Many final consonants were rare, occurring only in certain prepositions (e.g. ''ad'' "towards", ''apud'' "at, near (a person)"), conjunctions (''sed'' "but"), demonstratives (e.g. ''illud'' "that (over there)", ''hoc'' "this"), and nominative singular noun forms, especially of neuter nouns (e.g. ''lac'' "milk", ''mel'' "honey", ''cor'' "heart"). Many of these prepositions and conjunctions were replaced by others, while the nouns were regularized into forms based on their oblique stems that avoided the final consonants (e.g. *''lacte'', *''mele'', *''core''). Final ''-m'' was dropped in Vulgar Latin. Even in
Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later per ...
, final ''-am'', ''-em'', ''-um'' (
inflectional suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry gr ...
es of the
accusative case The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
) were often
elide In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run tog ...
d in
poetic meter In poetry, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set ...
, suggesting the ''m'' was weakly pronounced, probably marking the nasalisation of the vowel before it. This nasal vowel lost its nasalization in the Romance languages except in monosyllables, where it became e.g. Spanish ''quien'' < ''quem'' "whom", French ''rien'' "anything" < ''rem'' "thing"; note especially French and Catalan ''mon'' < ''meum'' "my (m.sg.)" which are derived from monosyllabic > *, whereas Spanish disyllabic ''mío'' and Portuguese and Catalan monosyllabic ''meu'' are derived from disyllabic > *. As a result, only the following final consonants occurred in Vulgar Latin: *Final ''-t'' in third-person singular verb forms, and ''-nt'' (later reduced in many languages to ''-n'') in third-person plural verb forms. *Final ''-s'' (including ''-x'') in a large number of morphological endings (verb endings ''-ās/-ēs/-īs/-is'', ''-mus'', ''-tis''; nominative singular ''-us/-is''; plural ''-ās/-ōs/-ēs'') and certain other words (''trēs'' "three", ''sex'' "six", ''crās'' "tomorrow", etc.). *Final ''-n'' in some monosyllables (from earlier ''-m''). *Final ''-r'', ''-d'' in some prepositions (e.g. ''ad'', ''per''), which were
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s that attached phonologically to the following word. *Very occasionally, final ''-c'', e.g.
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts ...
''oc'' "yes" < ''hoc'',
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
''avuec'' "with" < ''apud hoc'' (although these instances were possibly protected by a final
epenthetic In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable ('' prothesis'') or in the ending syllable ('' paragoge'') or in-between two syllabic sounds in a word. The word ''epent ...
vowel at one point). Final ''-t'' was eventually lost in many languages, although this often occurred several centuries after the Vulgar Latin period. For example, the reflex of ''-t'' was dropped in
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
and
Old Spanish Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
only around 1100. In Old French, this occurred only when a vowel still preceded the ''t'' (generally < Latin ''a''). Hence ''amat'' "he loves" > Old French ''aime'' but ''venit'' "he comes" > Old French ''vient'': the was never dropped and survives into Modern French in liaison, e.g. ''vient-il?'' "is he coming?" (the corresponding in ''aime-t-il?'' is analogical, not inherited). Old French also kept the third-person plural ending ''-nt'' intact. In Italo-Romance and the
Eastern Romance languages The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-R ...
, eventually all final consonants were either lost or protected by an epenthetic vowel, except for some articles and a few monosyllabic prepositions ''con'', ''per'', ''in''. Modern Standard Italian still has very few consonant-final words, although Romanian has resurfaced them through later loss of final and . For example, ''amās'' "you love" > ''ame'' > Italian ''ami''; ''amant'' "they love" > *''aman'' > Ital. ''amano''. On the evidence of "sloppily written"
Lombardic language Lombardic or Langobardic is an extinct West Germanic language that was spoken by the Lombards (), the Germanic people who settled in Italy in the sixth century. It was already declining by the seventh century because the invaders quickly adop ...
documents, however, the loss of final in northern Italy did not occur until the 7th or 8th century, after the Vulgar Latin period, and the presence of many former final consonants is betrayed by the
syntactic gemination Syntactic gemination, or syntactic doubling, is an external sandhi phenomenon in Italian, other Romance languages spoken in Italy, and Finnish. It consists in the lengthening (gemination) of the initial consonant in certain contexts. It may als ...
(''raddoppiamento sintattico'') that they trigger. It is also thought that after a long vowel became rather than simply disappearing: ''nōs'' > ''noi'' "we", ''se(d)ēs'' > ''sei'' "you are", ''crās'' > ''crai'' "tomorrow" (southern Italy). In unstressed syllables, the resulting diphthongs were simplified: ''canēs'' > > ''cani'' "dogs"; ''amīcās'' > > ''amiche'' "(female) friends", where nominative ''amīcae'' should produce ''**amice'' rather than ''amiche'' (note masculine ''amīcī'' > ''amici'' not ''**amichi''). Central
Western Romance languages Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included. ...
eventually regained a large number of final consonants through the general loss of final and , e.g. Catalan ''llet'' "milk" < ''lactem'', ''foc'' "fire" < ''focum'', ''peix'' "fish" < ''piscem''. In French, most of these secondary final consonants (as well as primary ones) were lost before around 1700, but tertiary final consonants later arose through the loss of < ''-a''. Hence masculine ''frīgidum'' "cold" > Old French ''freit'' > ''froid'' , feminine ''frigidam'' > Old French ''freide'' > ''froide'' .


Palatalization

Palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation ...
was one of the most important processes affecting consonants in Vulgar Latin. This eventually resulted in a whole series of "" and consonants in most Romance languages, e.g. Italian . The following historical stages occurred: Note how the environments become progressively less "palatal", and the languages affected become progressively fewer. The outcomes of palatalization depended on the historical stage, the consonants involved, and the languages involved. The primary division is between the Western Romance languages, with resulting from palatalization of , and the remaining languages (Italo-Dalmatian and Eastern Romance), with resulting. It is often suggested that was the original result in all languages, with > a later innovation in the Western Romance languages. Evidence of this is the fact that Italian has both and as outcomes of palatalization in different environments, while Western Romance has only . Even more suggestive is the fact that the
Mozarabic language Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
in
al-Andalus Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the Mus ...
(modern southern Spain) had as the outcome despite being in the "Western Romance" area and geographically disconnected from the remaining areas; this suggests that Mozarabic was an outlying "relic" area where the change > failed to reach. (Northern French dialects, such as
Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...
and Picard, also had , but this may be a secondary development, i.e. due to a later sound change > .) Note that eventually became /s, z, ʒ/ in most Western Romance languages. Thus Latin ''caelum'' (sky, heaven), pronounced with an initial , became Italian ''cielo'' , Romanian ''cer'' , Spanish ''cielo'' /, French ''ciel'' , Catalan ''cel'' , and Portuguese ''céu'' . The outcome of palatalized and is less clear: *Original has the same outcome as palatalized everywhere. *Romanian fairly consistently has < from palatalized , but from palatalized . *Italian inconsistently has from palatalized , and from palatalized . *Most other languages have the same results for palatalized and : consistent initially, but either or medially (depending on language and exact context). But Spanish has (phonetically ) initially except before , ; nearby Gascon is similar. This suggests that palatalized > > either or depending on location, while palatalized > ; after this, > in most areas, but Spanish and Gascon (originating from isolated districts behind the western
Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to ...
) were relic areas unaffected by this change. In French, the outcomes of palatalized by and by were different: ''centum'' "hundred" > ''cent'' but ''cantum'' "song" > ''chant'' . French also underwent palatalization of labials before : Vulgar Latin > Old French (''sēpia'' "cuttlefish" > ''seiche'', ''rubeus'' "red" > ''rouge'', ''sīmia'' "monkey" > ''singe''). The original outcomes of palatalization must have continued to be phonetically palatalized even after they had developed into //etc. consonants. This is clear from French, where all originally palatalized consonants triggered the development of a following glide in certain circumstances (most visible in the endings ''-āre'', ''-ātum/ātam''). In some cases this came from a consonant palatalized by an adjoining consonant after the late loss of a separating vowel. For example, ''mansiōnātam'' > > > > early
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
''maisnieḍe'' "household". Similarly, ''mediētātem'' > > > > early
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
''meitieḍ'' > modern French ''moitié'' "half". In both cases, phonetic palatalization must have remained in primitive Old French at least through the time when unstressed intertonic vowels were lost (?8th century), well after the fragmentation of the Romance languages. The effect of palatalization is indicated in the writing systems of almost all Romance languages, where the letters have the "hard" pronunciation in most situations, but a "soft" pronunciation (e.g. French/Portuguese , Italian/Romanian ) before . (This orthographic trait has passed into Modern English through
Norman French Norman or Norman French (, french: Normand, Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with French, Picard and Walloon. The name "Norman French" is sometimes used to describ ...
-speaking scribes writing
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
; this replaced the earlier system of
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
, which had developed its own hard-soft distinction with the soft representing .) This has the effect of keeping the modern spelling similar to the original Latin spelling, but complicates the relationship between sound and letter. In particular, the hard sounds must be written differently before (e.g. Italian , Portuguese ), and likewise for the soft sounds when not before these letters (e.g. Italian , Portuguese ). Furthermore, in Spanish, Catalan, Occitan and Brazilian Portuguese, the use of digraphs containing to signal the hard pronunciation before means that a different spelling is also needed to signal the sounds before these vowels (Spanish , Catalan, Occitan and Brazilian Portuguese ). This produces a number of orthographic alternations in verbs whose pronunciation is entirely regular. The following are examples of corresponding first-person plural indicative and subjunctive in a number of regular Portuguese verbs: ''marcamos, marquemos'' "we mark"; ''caçamos, cacemos'' "we hunt"; ''chegamos, cheguemos'' "we arrive"; ''averiguamos, averigüemos'' "we verify"; ''adequamos, adeqüemos'' "we adapt"; ''oferecemos, ofereçamos'' "we offer"; ''dirigimos, dirijamos'' "we drive" ''erguemos, ergamos'' "we raise"; ''delinquimos, delincamos'' "we commit a crime". In the case of Italian, the convention of digraphs and to represent /k/ and /ɡ/ before written results in similar orthographic alternations, such as ''dimentico'' 'I forget', ''dimentichi'' 'you forget', ''baco'' 'worm', ''bachi'' 'worms' with or ''pago'' 'I pay', ''paghi'' 'you pay' and ''lago'' 'lake', ''laghi'' 'lakes' with The use in Italian of and to represent /tʃ/ or /dʒ/ before vowels written neatly distinguishes ''dico'' 'I say' with /k/ from ''dici'' 'you say' with /tʃ/ or ''ghiro'' 'dormouse' /ɡ/ and ''giro'' 'turn, revolution' /dʒ/, but with orthographic and also representing the sequence of /tʃ/ or /dʒ/ and the actual vowel /i/ (/ditʃi/ ''dici'', /dʒiro/ ''giro''), and no generally observed convention of indicating stress position, the status of ''i'' when followed by another vowel in spelling can be unrecognizable. For example, the written forms offer no indication that in ''camicia'' 'shirt' represents a single unstressed syllable /tʃa/ with no /i/ at any level (/kaˈmitʃa/ → aˈmiːtʃa~ aˈmiːʃa, but that underlying the same spelling in ''farmacia'' 'pharmacy' is a bisyllabic sequence consisting of the stressed syllable /tʃi/ and syllabic /a/ (/farmaˈtʃi.a/ → armaˈtʃiːa~ armaˈʃiːa.


Lenition

Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...
s shifted by
lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
in Vulgar Latin in some areas. The voiced
labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, b ...
s and (represented by and , respectively) both developed a
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
as an intervocalic allophone. This is clear from the orthography; in medieval times, the spelling of a consonantal is often used for what had been a in Classical Latin, or the two spellings were used interchangeably. In many Romance languages (Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.), this fricative later developed into a ; but in others (Spanish, Galician, some Catalan and Occitan dialects, etc.) reflexes of and simply merged into a single phoneme. Several other consonants were "softened" in intervocalic position in Western Romance (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Northern Italian), but normally not phonemically in the rest of Italy (except some cases of "elegant" or Ecclesiastical words), nor apparently at all in Romanian. The dividing line between the two sets of dialects is called the
La Spezia–Rimini Line The La Spezia–Rimini Line (also known as the ''Massa–Senigallia Line''), in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line fr ...
and is one of the most important
isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Maj ...
es of the Romance dialects. The changes (instances of diachronic lenition resulting in phonological restructuring) are as follows: Single voiceless plosives became
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound product ...
d: ''-p-, -t-, -c-'' > ''-b-, -d-, -g-''. Subsequently, in some languages they were further weakened, either becoming
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s or
approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
s, (as in Spanish) or disappearing entirely (as and , but not , in French). The following example shows progressive weakening of original /t/: e.g. ''vītam'' > Italian ''vita'' , Portuguese ''vida'' (European Portuguese ), Spanish ''vida'' (Southern Peninsular Spanish ), and French ''vie'' . Some scholars have speculated that these sound changes may be due in part to the influence of
Continental Celtic languages The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Contine ...
, while scholarship of the past few decades has proposed internal motivations. *The voiced plosives and tended to disappear. *The plain
sibilant Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', an ...
''-s-'' was also voiced to between vowels, although in many languages its spelling has not changed. (In Spanish, intervocalic was later devoiced back to ; is only found as an
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ' ...
of before voiced consonants in Modern Spanish.) *The
double A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another. Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to: Film and television * Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character * ...
plosives became single: ''-pp-, -tt-, -cc-, -bb-, -dd-, -gg-'' > ''-p-, -t-, -c-, -b-, -d-, -g-'' in most languages. Subsequently, in some languages the voiced forms were further weakened, either becoming fricatives or approximants, (as in Spanish). In French spelling, double consonants are merely etymological, except for -ll- after -i (pronounced j, in most cases. *The double sibilant ''-ss-'' also became phonetically single , although in many languages its spelling has not changed. Double sibilant remains in some
languages of Italy The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance grou ...
, like Italian, Sardinian, and Sicilian. The sound /h/ was usually lost, except in Romanian. Some Romance languages re-developed /h/, however, notably Spanish (from /ʃ/, /ʒ/, or /ks/, and spelled as either "j" or soft "g", also syllable-final /s/) and Brazilian Portuguese (from /r/).
Consonant length In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
is no longer phonemically distinctive in most Romance languages. However some
languages of Italy The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance grou ...
(Italian, Sardinian, Sicilian, and numerous other varieties of central and southern Italy) do have long consonants like , etc., where the doubling indicates either actual length or, in the case of
plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s and
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
s, a short hold before the consonant is released, in many cases with distinctive lexical value: e.g. ''note'' (notes) vs. ''notte'' (night), ''cade'' (s/he, it falls) vs. ''cadde'' (s/he, it fell), ''caro'' (dear, expensive) vs. ''carro'' (cart, car). They may even occur at the beginning of words in Romanesco, Neapolitan, Sicilian and other southern varieties, and are occasionally indicated in writing, e.g. Sicilian ''cchiù'' (more), and ''ccà'' (here). In general, the consonants , , and are long at the start of a word, while the
archiphoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north- ...
is realised as a trill in the same position. In much of central and southern Italy, the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ weaken synchronically to fricative and between vowels, while their geminate congeners do not, e.g. ''cacio'' (cheese) vs. ''caccio'' (I chase). In Italian the geminates /ʃʃ/, /ɲɲ/, and /ʎʎ/ are pronounced as long �ʃ �ɲ and �ʎbetween vowels, but normally reduced to short following pause: ''lasciare'' 'let, leave' or ''la sciarpa'' 'the scarf' with �ʃ but post-pausal ''sciarpa'' with A few languages have regained secondary geminate consonants. The double consonants of Piedmontese exist only after stressed , written ''ë'', and are not etymological: ''vëdde'' (Latin ''vidēre'', to see), ''sëcca'' (Latin ''sicca'', dry, feminine of ''sech''). In standard Catalan and Occitan, there exists a geminate sound written ''l·l'' (Catalan) or ''ll'' (Occitan), but it is usually pronounced as a simple sound in colloquial (and even some formal) speech in both languages.


Vowel prosthesis

In
Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in th ...
a
prosthetic In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through tra ...
vowel /i/ (lowered to /e/ in most languages) was inserted at the beginning of any word that began with (referred to as ''s impura'') and a voiceless consonant (#sC- > isC-): *''scrībere'' 'to write' > Sardinian ''iscribere'', Spanish ''escribir'', Portuguese ''escrever'', Catalan ''escriure'', Old French ''escri(v)re'' (mod. ''écrire''); *''spatha'' "sword" > Sard ''ispada'', Sp/Pg ''espada'', Cat ''espasa'', OFr ''espeḍe'' (modern ''épée''); *''spiritus'' "spirit" > Sard ''ispìritu'', Sp ''espíritu'', Pg ''espírito'', Cat ''esperit'', French ''esprit''; *''Stephanum'' "Stephen" > Sard ''Istèvene'', Sp ''Esteban'', Cat ''Esteve'', Pg ''Estêvão'', OFr ''Estievne'' (mod. ''Étienne''); *''status'' "state" > Sard ''istadu'', Sp/Pg ''estado'', Cat ''estat'', OFr ''estat'' (mod. ''état''). While Western Romance words fused the prosthetic vowel with the word, cognates in Balkan Romance and southern Italo-Romance did not, e.g. Italian ''scrivere'', ''spada'', ''spirito'', ''Stefano'', and ''stato'', Romanian ''scrie'', ''spată'', ''spirit'', ''Ștefan'' and ''statut//stare''. In Italian, syllabification rules were preserved instead by vowel-final articles, thus feminine ''spada'' as ''la spada'', but instead of rendering the masculine ''*il spaghetto'', ''lo spaghetto'' came to be the norm. Though receding at present, Italian once had a prosthetic maintaining /s/ syllable-final if a consonant preceded such clusters, so that 'in Switzerland' was ''in'' ''Svizzera''. Some speakers still use the prothetic productively, and it is fossilized in a few set locutions such as ''in ispecie'' 'especially' or ''per iscritto'' 'in writing' (a form whose survival may have been buttressed in part by the word ''iscritto'' < Latin ''īnscrīptus''); this is because in Italian, a syllable-final position cannot be more than 1 consonant in all native words. The association of /i/ ~ /j/ and /s/ also led to the vocalization of word-final -''s'' in Italian, Romanian, certain Occitan dialects, and the Spanish dialect of Chocó in
Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Cari ...
.


Stressed vowels


Loss of vowel length, reorientation

One profound change that affected Vulgar Latin was the reorganisation of its
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
system. Classical Latin had five short vowels, ''ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ'', and five
long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
s, ''ā, ē, ī, ō, ū'', each of which was an individual
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-w ...
(see the table in the right, for their likely pronunciation in IPA), and four
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s, ''ae'', ''oe'', ''au'' and ''eu'' (five according to some authors, including ''ui''). There were also long and short versions of ''y'', representing the
rounded vowel In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pr ...
in Greek borrowings, which however probably came to be pronounced even before Romance vowel changes started. There is evidence that in the imperial period all the short vowels except ''a'' differed by quality as well as by length from their long counterparts. So, for example ''ē'' was pronounced close-mid while ''ĕ'' was pronounced open-mid , and ''ī'' was pronounced
close Close may refer to: Music * ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988 * ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017 * ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969 * "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014 * "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016 * "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
while ''ĭ'' was pronounced near-close . During the Proto-Romance period, phonemic length distinctions were lost. Vowels came to be automatically pronounced long in stressed,
open syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
s (i.e. when followed by only one consonant), and pronounced short everywhere else. This situation is still maintained in modern Italian: ''cade'' "he falls" vs. ''cadde'' "he fell". The Proto-Romance loss of phonemic length originally produced a system with nine different quality distinctions in monophthongs, where only original had merged. Soon, however, many of these vowels coalesced: *The simplest outcome was in Sardinian, where the former long and short vowels in Latin simply coalesced, e.g. > , > : This produced a simple five-vowel system . *In most areas, however (technically, the
Italo-Western languages Italo-Western is, in some classifications, the largest branch of the Romance languages. It comprises two of the branches of Romance languages: Italo-Dalmatian and Western Romance. It excludes the Sardinian language and Eastern Romance. Italo ...
), the near-close vowels lowered and merged into the high-mid vowels . As a result, Latin ''pira'' "pear" and ''vēra'' "true", came to rhyme (e.g. Italian and Spanish ''pera, vera'', and
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
''poire, voire''). Similarly, Latin ''nucem'' (from ''nux'' "nut") and ''vōcem'' (from ''vōx'' "voice") become Italian ''noce, voce'', Portuguese ''noz, voz'', and French ''noix, voix''. This produced a seven-vowel system , still maintained in conservative languages such as Italian and Portuguese, and lightly transformed in Spanish (where ). *In the
Eastern Romance languages The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, the group consists of the Daco-Romance subgroup, which comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-R ...
(particularly, Romanian), the front vowels evolved as in the majority of languages, but the back vowels evolved as in Sardinian. This produced an unbalanced six-vowel system: . In modern Romanian, this system has been significantly transformed, with and with new vowels evolving, leading to a balanced seven-vowel system with central as well as front and back vowels: . * Sicilian is sometimes described as having its own distinct vowel system. In fact, Sicilian passed through the same developments as the main bulk of Italo-Western languages. Subsequently, however, high-mid vowels (but not low-mid vowels) were raised in all syllables, stressed and unstressed; i.e. . The result is a five-vowel . Further variants are found in southern Italy and Corsica, which also boasts a completely distinct system (see above). The Proto-Romance allophonic vowel-length system was rephonemicized in the
Gallo-Romance languages The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...
as a result of the loss of many final vowels. Some northern Italian languages (e.g. Friulian) still maintain this secondary phonemic length, but most languages dropped it by either diphthongizing or shortening the new long vowels. French phonemicized a third vowel length system around AD 1300 as a result of the sound change /VsC/ > /VhC/ > (where ''V'' is any vowel and ''C'' any consonant). This vowel length began to be lost in Early Modern French, but the long vowels are still usually marked with a circumflex (and continue to be distinguished regionally, chiefly in Belgium). A fourth vowel length system, still non-phonemic, has now arisen: All nasal vowels as well as the oral vowels (which mostly derive from former long vowels) are pronounced long in all stressed
closed syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
s, and all vowels are pronounced long in syllables closed by the voiced fricatives . This system in turn has been phonemicized in some non-standard dialects (e.g.
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...
), as a result of the loss of final .


Latin diphthongs

The Latin diphthongs ''ae'' and ''oe'', pronounced and in earlier Latin, were early on monophthongized. ''ae'' became by the 1st century at the latest. Although this sound was still distinct from all existing vowels, the neutralization of Latin vowel length eventually caused its merger with < short ''e'': e.g. ''caelum'' "sky" > French ''ciel'', Spanish/Italian ''cielo'', Portuguese ''céu'' , with the same vowel as in ''mele'' "honey" > French/Spanish ''miel'', Italian ''miele'', Portuguese ''mel'' . Some words show an early merger of ''ae'' with , as in ''praeda'' "booty" > *''prēda'' > French ''proie'' (vs. expected **''priée''), Italian ''preda'' (not **''prieda'') "prey"; or ''faenum'' "hay" > *''fēnum'' > Spanish ''heno'', French ''foin'' (but Italian ''fieno'' /fjɛno/). ''oe'' generally merged with : ''poenam'' "punishment" > Romance * > Spanish/Italian ''pena'', French ''peine''; ''foedus'' "ugly" > Romance * > Spanish ''feo'', Portuguese ''feio''. There are relatively few such outcomes, since ''oe'' was rare in Classical Latin (most original instances had become Classical ''ū'', as in Old Latin ''oinos'' "one" > Classical ''ūnus''Palmer (1954).) and so ''oe'' was mostly limited to Greek loanwords, which were typically learned (high-register) terms. ''au'' merged with ''ō'' in the popular speech of Rome already by the 1st century . A number of authors remarked on this explicitly, e.g.
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
's taunt that the populist politician
Publius Clodius Pulcher Publius Clodius Pulcher (93–52 BC) was a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the time of the First Triumvirate. One of the most colourful personalities of his era, Clodius was descended from the aristocratic Claudia gens, one ...
had changed his name from ''Claudius'' to ingratiate himself with the masses. This change never penetrated far from Rome, however, and the pronunciation /au/ was maintained for centuries in the vast majority of Latin-speaking areas, although it eventually developed into some variety of ''o'' in many languages. For example, Italian and French have as the usual reflex, but this post-dates diphthongization of and the French-specific palatalization > (hence ''causa'' > French ''chose'', Italian ''cosa'' not **''cuosa''). Spanish has , but Portuguese spelling maintains , which has developed to (and still remains as in some dialects, and in others). Occitan, Romanian, southern Italian languages, and many other minority Romance languages still have . A few common words, however, show an early merger with ''ō'' , evidently reflecting a generalization of the popular Roman pronunciation: e.g. French ''queue'', Italian ''coda'' , Occitan ''co(d)a'', Romanian ''coadă'' (all meaning "tail") must all derive from ''cōda'' rather than Classical ''cauda'' (but notice Portuguese ''cauda''). Similarly, Spanish ''oreja'', Portuguese ''orelha'', French ''oreille'', Romanian ''ureche'', and Sardinian ''olícra'', ''orícla'' "ear" must derive from ''ōric(u)la'' rather than Classical ''auris'' (Occitan ''aurelha'' was probably influenced by the unrelated ''ausir'' < ''audīre'' "to hear"), and the form ''oricla'' is in fact reflected in the
Appendix Probi The ''Appendix Probi'' ("Probus' Appendix") is the conventional name for a series of five documents believed to have been copied in the seventh or eighth century in Bobbio, Italy. Its name derives from the fact that the documents were found att ...
.


Further developments


= Metaphony

= An early process that operated in all Romance languages to varying degrees was
metaphony In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be se ...
(vowel mutation), conceptually similar to the umlaut process so characteristic of the
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
. Depending on the language, certain stressed vowels were raised (or sometimes diphthongized) either by a final /i/ or /u/ or by a directly following /j/. Metaphony is most extensive in the Italo-Romance languages, and applies to nearly all languages in Italy; however, it is absent from Tuscan, and hence from standard Italian. In many languages affected by metaphony, a distinction exists between final /u/ (from most cases of Latin ''-um'') and final /o/ (from Latin ''-ō'', ''-ud'' and some cases of ''-um'', esp. masculine "mass" nouns), and only the former triggers metaphony. Some examples: *In Servigliano in the
Marche Marche ( , ) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. In English, the region is sometimes referred to as The Marches ( ). The region is located in the central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the ...
of Italy, stressed are raised to before final /i/ or /u/: "I put" vs. "you put" (< *metti < *mettes < Latin ''mittis''); "modest (fem.)" vs. "modest (masc.)"; "this (neut.)" (< Latin ''eccum istud'') vs. "this (masc.)" (< Latin ''eccum istum''). *Calvallo in
Basilicata it, Lucano (man) it, Lucana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...
,
southern Italy Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half. The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...
, is similar, but the low-mid vowels are diphthongized to rather than raised: "he puts" vs. "you put", but "I think" vs. "you think". *Metaphony also occurs in most northern Italian dialects, but only by (usually lost) final *i; apparently, final *u was lowered to *o (usually lost) before metaphony could take effect. *Some of the
Astur-Leonese language Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Astur ...
s in northern Spain have the same distinction between final /o/ and /u/ as in the Central-Southern Italian languages, with /u/ triggering metaphony.Álvaro Arias.
La armonización vocálica en fonología funcional (de lo sintagmático en fonología a propósito de dos casos de metafonía hispánica)
", ''Moenia'' 11 (2006): 111–139.
The plural of masculine nouns in these dialects ends in ''-os'', which does not trigger metaphony, unlike in the singular (vs. Italian plural ''-i'', which does trigger metaphony). *Sardinian has allophonic raising of mid vowels to before final /i/ or /u/. This has been phonemicized in the
Campidanese dialect Campidanese Sardinian ( sc, sardu campidanesu, it, sardo campidanese) is one of the two written standards of the Sardinian language, which is often considered one of the most, if not the most conservative of all the Romance languages. The orth ...
as a result of the raising of final /e o/ to /i u/. *Raising of to occurs sporadically in Portuguese in the masculine singular, e.g. ''porco'' "pig" vs. ''porcos'' "pig". It is thought that Galician-Portuguese at one point had singular /u/ vs. plural /os/, exactly as in modern Astur-Leonese. *In all of the Western Romance languages, final /i/ (primarily occurring in the first-person singular of the
preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple pa ...
) raised mid-high to , e.g. Portuguese ''fiz'' "I did" (< *fidzi < *fedzi < Latin ''fēcī'') vs. ''fez'' "he did" (< *fedze < Latin ''fēcit''). Old Spanish similarly had ''fize'' "I did" vs. ''fezo'' "he did" (''-o'' by analogy with ''amó'' "he loved"), but subsequently generalized stressed /i/, producing modern ''hice'' "I did" vs. ''hizo'' "he did". The same thing happened prehistorically in Old French, yielding ''fis'' "I did", ''fist'' "he did" (< *feist < Latin ''fēcit'').


= Diphthongization

= A number of languages diphthongized some of the free vowels, especially the open-mid vowels : *Spanish consistently diphthongized all open-mid vowels except for before certain palatal consonants (which raised the vowels to close-mid before diphthongization took place). *Romanian similarly diphthongized to (the corresponding vowel did not develop from Proto-Romance). *Italian diphthongized and in open syllables (in the situations where vowels were lengthened in Proto-Romance), the most salient exception being /ˈbɛne/ ''bene'' 'well', perhaps due to the high frequency of apocopated ''ben'' (e.g. ''ben difficile'' 'quite difficult', ''ben fatto'' 'well made' etc.). *French similarly diphthongized in open syllables (when lengthened), along with : > > middle OF > modern . *French also diphthongized before palatalized consonants, especially /j/. Further development was as follows: ; > /uoj/ > early OF /uj/ > modern /ɥi/. *Catalan diphthongized before /j/ from palatalized consonants, just like French, with similar results: , . These diphthongizations had the effect of reducing or eliminating the distinctions between open-mid and close-mid vowels in many languages. In Spanish and Romanian, all open-mid vowels were diphthongized, and the distinction disappeared entirely. Portuguese is the most conservative in this respect, keeping the seven-vowel system more or less unchanged (but with changes in particular circumstances, e.g. due to
metaphony In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be se ...
). Other than before palatalized consonants, Catalan keeps intact, but split in a complex fashion into and then coalesced again in the standard dialect (
Eastern Catalan The Catalan dialects feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between its dialects is very high, estim ...
) in such a way that most original have reversed their quality to become . In French and Italian, the distinction between open-mid and close-mid vowels occurred only in closed syllables. Standard Italian more or less maintains this. In French, /e/ and merged by the twelfth century or so, and the distinction between and was eliminated without merging by the sound changes , . Generally this led to a situation where both and occur allophonically, with the close-mid vowels in
open syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
s and the open-mid vowels in
closed syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
s. In French, both and were partly rephonemicized: Both and occur in open syllables as a result of , and both and occur in closed syllables as a result of . Old French also had numerous falling diphthongs resulting from diphthongization before palatal consonants or from a fronted /j/ originally following palatal consonants in Proto-Romance or later: e.g. ''pācem'' /patsʲe/ "peace" > PWR */padzʲe/ (lenition) > OF ''paiz'' /pajts/; *''punctum'' "point" > Gallo-Romance */ponʲto/ > */pojɲto/ (fronting) > OF ''point'' /põjnt/. During the Old French period, preconsonantal /l/ vocalized to /w/, producing many new falling diphthongs: e.g. ''dulcem'' "sweet" > PWR */doltsʲe/ > OF ''dolz'' /duɫts/ > ''douz'' /duts/; ''fallet'' "fails, is deficient" > OF ''falt'' > ''faut'' "is needed"; ''bellus'' "beautiful" > OF ''bels'' > ''beaus'' . By the end of the Middle French period, ''all'' falling diphthongs either monophthongized or switched to rising diphthongs: proto-OF > early OF > modern spelling > mod. French .


= Nasalization

= In both French and Portuguese,
nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
s eventually developed from sequences of a vowel followed by a nasal consonant (/m/ or /n/). Originally, all vowels in both languages were nasalized before any nasal consonants, and nasal consonants not immediately followed by a vowel were eventually dropped. In French, nasal vowels before remaining nasal consonants were subsequently denasalized, but not before causing the vowels to lower somewhat, e.g. ''dōnat'' "he gives" > OF ''dune'' > ''donne'' , ''fēminam'' > ''femme'' . Other vowels remained nasalized, and were dramatically lowered: ''fīnem'' "end" > ''fin'' (often pronounced ); ''linguam'' "tongue" > ''langue'' ; ''ūnum'' "one" > ''un'' . In Portuguese, /n/ between vowels was dropped, and the resulting
hiatus Hiatus may refer to: * Hiatus (anatomy), a natural fissure in a structure * Hiatus (stratigraphy), a discontinuity in the age of strata in stratigraphy *''Hiatus'', a genus of picture-winged flies with sole member species '' Hiatus fulvipes'' * G ...
eliminated through vowel contraction of various sorts, often producing diphthongs: ''manum, *manōs'' > PWR *''manu, ˈmanos'' "hand(s)" > ''mão, mãos'' ; ''canem, canēs'' "dog(s)" > PWR *''kane, ˈkanes'' > *''can, ˈcanes'' > ''cão, cães'' ; ''ratiōnem, ratiōnēs'' "reason(s)" > PWR *''raˈdʲzʲone, raˈdʲzʲones'' > *''raˈdzon, raˈdzones'' > ''razão, razões'' (Brazil), (Portugal). Sometimes the nasalization was eliminated: ''lūna'' "moon" > Galician-Portuguese ''lũa'' > ''lua''; ''vēna'' "vein" > Galician-Portuguese ''vẽa'' > ''veia''. Nasal vowels that remained actually tend to be raised (rather than lowered, as in French): ''fīnem'' "end" > ''fim'' ; ''centum'' "hundred" > PWR ''tʲsʲɛnto'' > ''cento'' ; ''pontem'' "bridge" > PWR ''pɔnte'' > ''ponte'' (Brazil), (Portugal).


Front-rounded vowels

Characteristic of the
Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Romanc ...
and
Rhaeto-Romance languages Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The qu ...
are the
front rounded vowel A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded. The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include: * , a close front rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel") * , a near-close front rounded vowel (or ...
s . All of these languages show an unconditional change /u/ > /y/, e.g. ''lūnam'' > French ''lune'' , Occitan . Many of the languages in Switzerland and Italy show the further change /y/ > /i/. Also very common is some variation of the French development (lengthened in
open syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
s) > > , with mid back vowels diphthongizing in some circumstances and then re-monophthongizing into mid-front rounded vowels. (French has both and , with developing from in certain circumstances.)


Unstressed vowels

There was more variability in the result of the unstressed vowels. Originally in Proto-Romance, the same nine vowels developed in unstressed as stressed syllables, and in Sardinian, they coalesced into the same five vowels in the same way. In Italo-Western Romance, however, vowels in unstressed syllables were significantly different from stressed vowels, with yet a third outcome for final unstressed syllables. In non-final unstressed syllables, the seven-vowel system of stressed syllables developed, but then the low-mid vowels merged into the high-mid vowels . This system is still preserved, largely or completely, in all of the conservative Romance languages (e.g. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan). In final unstressed syllables, results were somewhat complex. One of the more difficult issues is the development of final short ''-u'', which appears to have been raised to rather than lowered to , as happened in all other syllables. However, it is possible that in reality, final comes from ''long'' *''-ū'' < ''-um'', where original final ''-m'' caused vowel lengthening as well as nasalization. Evidence of this comes from
Rhaeto-Romance Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The qu ...
, in particular Sursilvan, which preserves reflexes of both final ''-us'' and ''-um'', and where the latter, but not the former, triggers
metaphony In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be se ...
. This suggests the development ''-us'' > > , but ''-um'' > > . The original five-vowel system in final unstressed syllables was preserved as-is in some of the more conservative central Italian languages, but in most languages there was further coalescence: *In Tuscan (including standard Italian), final /u/ merged into /o/. *In the
Western Romance languages Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian Romance branches. Gallo-Italic may also be included. ...
, final /i/ eventually merged into /e/ (although final /i/ triggered
metaphony In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be se ...
before that, e.g. Spanish ''hice'', Portuguese ''fiz'' "I did" < ''*fize'' < Latin ''fēcī''). Conservative languages like Spanish largely maintain that system, but drop final /e/ after certain single consonants, e.g. /r/, /l/, /n/, /d/, /z/ (< palatalized ''c''). The same situation happened in final /u/ that merged into /o/ in Spanish. *In the
Gallo-Romance languages The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...
(part of Western Romance), final /o/ and /e/ were dropped entirely unless that produced an impossible final cluster (e.g. /tr/), in which case a "prop vowel" /e/ was added. This left only two final vowels: /a/ and prop vowel /e/. Catalan preserves this system. *Loss of final stressless vowels in Venetian shows a pattern intermediate between Central Italian and the
Gallo-Italic The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy. They are Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. Although most publications de ...
branch, and the environments for vowel deletion vary considerably depending on the dialect. In the table above, final /e/ is uniformly absent in ''mar'', absent in some dialects in ''part(e)'' /part(e)/ and ''set(e)'' /sɛt(e)/, but retained in ''mare'' (< Latin ''mātrem'') as a relic of the earlier cluster *dr. *In primitive
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
(one of the
Gallo-Romance languages The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...
), these two remaining vowels merged into . Various later changes happened in individual languages, e.g.: *In French, most final consonants were dropped, and then final was also dropped. The is still preserved in spelling as a final silent ''-e'', whose main purpose is to signal that the previous consonant is pronounced, e.g. ''port'' "port" vs. ''porte'' "door" . These changes also eliminated the difference between singular and plural in most words: ''ports'' "ports" (still ), ''portes'' "doors" (still ). Final consonants reappear in liaison contexts (in close connection with a following vowel-initial word), e.g. ''nous'' "we" vs. ''nous avons'' "we have", ''il fait'' "he does" vs. ''fait-il ?'' "does he?". *In Portuguese, final unstressed /o/ and /u/ were apparently preserved intact for a while, since final unstressed /u/, but not /o/ or /os/, triggered
metaphony In historical linguistics, metaphony is a class of sound change in which one vowel in a word is influenced by another in a process of assimilation. The sound change is normally "long-distance" in that the vowel triggering the change may be se ...
(see above). Final-syllable unstressed /o/ was raised in preliterary times to /u/, but always still written . At some point (perhaps in late Galician-Portuguese), final-syllable unstressed /e/ was raised to /i/ (but still written ); this remains in
Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (' ), also Portuguese of Brazil (', ) or South American Portuguese (') is the set of varieties of the Portuguese language native to Brazil and the most influential form of Portuguese worldwide. It is spoken by almost all ...
, but has developed to in northern and central
European Portuguese European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
. *In Catalan, final unstressed > . In many dialects, unstressed and merge into as in Portuguese, and unstressed and merge into . However, some dialects preserve the original five-vowel system, most notably standard
Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...
.


Intertonic vowels

The so-called ''intertonic vowels'' are word-internal unstressed vowels, i.e. not in the initial, final, or ''tonic'' (i.e. stressed) syllable, hence intertonic. Intertonic vowels were the most subject to loss or modification. Already in Vulgar Latin intertonic vowels between a single consonant and a following /r/ or /l/ tended to drop: ''vétulum'' "old" > ''veclum'' > Dalmatian ''vieklo'', Sicilian ''vecchiu'', Portuguese ''velho''. But many languages ultimately dropped almost all intertonic vowels. Generally, those languages south and east of the
La Spezia–Rimini Line The La Spezia–Rimini Line (also known as the ''Massa–Senigallia Line''), in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line fr ...
(Romanian and Central-Southern Italian) maintained intertonic vowels, while those to the north and west (Western Romance) dropped all except /a/. Standard Italian generally maintained intertonic vowels, but typically raised unstressed /e/ > /i/. Examples: *''septimā́nam'' "week" > Italian ''settimana'', Romanian ''săptămână'' vs. Spanish/Portuguese ''semana'', French ''semaine'', Occitan/Catalan ''setmana'', Piedmontese ''sman-a'' *''quattuórdecim'' "fourteen" > Italian ''quattordici'', Venetian ''cuatòrdexe'', Lombard/Piedmontese ''quatòrdes'', vs. Spanish ''catorce'', Portuguese/French ''quatorze'' *''metipsissimus'' > ''medipsimus'' /medíssimos/ ~ /medéssimos/ "self" > Italian ''medésimo'' vs. Venetian ''medemo'', Lombard ''medemm'', Old Spanish ''meísmo'', ''meesmo'' (> modern ''mismo''), Galician-Portuguese ''meesmo'' (> modern ''mesmo''), Old French ''meḍisme'' (> later ''meïsme'' > MF ''mesme'' > modern ''même'') *''bonitā́tem'' "goodness" > Italian ''bonità'' ~ ''bontà'', Romanian ''bunătate'' but Spanish ''bondad'', Portuguese ''bondade'', French ''bonté'' *''collocā́re'' "to position, arrange" > Italian ''coricare'' vs. Spanish ''colgar'' "to hang", Romanian ''culca'' "to lie down", French ''coucher'' "to lay sth on its side; put s.o. to bed" *''commūnicā́re'' "to take communion" > Romanian ''cumineca'' vs. Portuguese ''comungar'', Spanish ''comulgar'', Old French ''comungier'' *''carricā́re'' "to load (onto a wagon, cart)" > Portuguese/Catalan ''carregar'' vs. Spanish/Occitan ''cargar'' "to load", French ''charger'', Lombard ''cargà/caregà'', Venetian ''carigar/cargar(e)'' "to load", Romanian ''încărca'' *''fábricam'' "forge" > > Spanish ''fragua'', Portuguese ''frágua'', Occitan/Catalan ''farga'', French ''forge'' *''disjējūnā́re'' "to break a fast" > *''disjūnā́re'' > Old French ''disner'' "to have lunch" > French ''dîner'' "to dine" (but *''disjū́nat'' > Old French ''desjune'' "he has lunch" > French ''(il) déjeune'' "he has lunch") *''adjūtā́re'' "to help" > Italian ''aiutare'', Romanian ''ajuta'' but French ''aider'', Lombard ''aidà/aiuttà'' (Spanish ''ayudar'', Portuguese ''ajudar'' based on stressed forms, e.g. ''ayuda/ajuda'' "he helps"; cf. Old French ''aidier'' "to help" vs. ''aiue'' "he helps") Portuguese is more conservative in maintaining some intertonic vowels other than /a/: e.g. *''offerḗscere'' "to offer" > Portuguese ''oferecer'' vs. Spanish ''ofrecer'', French ''offrir'' (< *''offerīre''). French, on the other hand, drops even intertonic /a/ after the stress: ''Stéphanum'' "Stephen" > Spanish ''Esteban'' but Old French ''Estievne'' > French ''Étienne''. Many cases of /a/ before the stress also ultimately dropped in French: ''sacraméntum'' "sacrament" > Old French ''sairement'' > French ''serment'' "oath".


Writing systems

The Romance languages for the most part have kept the writing system of Latin, adapting it to their evolution. One exception was Romanian before the nineteenth century, where, after the Roman retreat, literacy was reintroduced through the
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
, a Slavic influence. A Cyrillic alphabet was also used for Romanian (then called Moldovan) in the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
. The non-Christian populations of Spain also used the scripts of their religions (
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
) to write Romance languages such as Ladino and
Mozarabic Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
in ''
aljamiado ''Aljamiado'' (; ; ar, عَجَمِيَة trans. ''ʿajamiyah'' ) or ''Aljamía'' texts are manuscripts that use the Arabic script for transcribing European languages, especially Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, S ...
''.


Letters

The Romance languages are written with the
classical Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
of 23 letters – ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', ''D'', ''E'', ''F'', ''G'', ''H'', ''I'', ''K'', ''L'', ''M'', ''N'', ''O'', ''P'', ''Q'', ''R'', ''S'', ''T'', ''V'', ''X'', ''Y'', ''Z'' – subsequently modified and augmented in various ways. In particular, the single Latin letter ''V'' split into ''V'' (consonant) and ''U'' (vowel), and the letter ''I'' split into ''I'' and ''J''. The Latin letter ''K'' and the new letter ''W'', which came to be widely used in Germanic languages, are seldom used in most Romance languages – mostly for unassimilated foreign names and words. Indeed, in Italian prose is properly . Portuguese and Catalan eschew importation of "foreign" letters more than most languages. Thus Wikipedia is in Catalan but in Spanish; chikungunya, sandwich, kiwi are , , in Portuguese but , , in Spanish. While most of the 23 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 that could not be recorded with the basic Latin alphabet, or to get around previously established spelling conventions. Most languages added auxiliary marks (
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s) to some letters, for these and other purposes. The spelling rules of most Romance languages are fairly simple, and consistent within any language. Since the spelling systems are based on phonemic structures rather than phonetics, however, the actual pronunciation of what is represented in standard orthography can be subject to considerable regional variation, as well as to allophonic differentiation by position in the word or utterance. Among the letters representing the most conspicuous phonological variations, between Romance languages or with respect to Latin, are the following: :B, V: Merged in Spanish and some dialects of Catalan, where both letters represent a single phoneme pronounced as either or depending on position, with no differentiation between B and V. :C: Generally a "hard" , but "soft" (
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
or
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
) before ''e'', ''i'', or ''y''. :G: Generally a "hard" , but "soft" (fricative or affricate) before ''e'', ''i'', or ''y''. In some languages, like Spanish, the hard ''g'', phonemically , is pronounced as a fricative after vowels. In Romansch, the soft ''g'' is a voiced palatal plosive or a voiced
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal articu ...
affricate . :H: Silent in most languages; used to form various digraphs. But represents in Romanian, Walloon and Gascon Occitan. :J: Represents the fricative in most languages, or the
palatal approximant The voiced palatal approximant, or yod, is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic n ...
in Romansh and in several of the languages of Italy, and or in Spanish, depending on the variety. Italian does not use this letter in native words. :Q: As in Latin, its phonetic value is that of a hard ''c'', i.e. , and in native words it is almost always followed by a (sometimes silent) ''u''. Romanian does not use this letter in native words. :S: Generally
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound product ...
less , but voiced between vowels in some languages. In Spanish, Romanian, Galician and several varieties of Italian, however, it is always pronounced voiceless between vowels. If the phoneme /s/ is represented by the letter S, predictable assimilations are normally not shown (e.g. Italian 'sled', spelled ''slitta'' but pronounced , never with ). Also at the end of syllables it may represent special
allophonic In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
pronunciations. In Romansh, it also stands for a voiceless or voiced fricative, or , before certain consonants. :W: No Romance language uses this letter in native words, with the exception of Walloon. :X: Its pronunciation is rather variable, both between and within languages. In the Middle Ages, the languages of Iberia used this letter to denote the
voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiceles ...
, which is still the case in modern Catalan and
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Por ...
. With the Renaissance the classical pronunciation – or similar
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fi ...
s, such as , , or – were frequently reintroduced in
latinism A Latinism (from lat-med, Latinismus) is a word, idiom, or structure in a language other than Latin that is derived from, or suggestive of, the Latin language. The Term ''Latinism'' refers to those loan words that are borrowed into another lan ...
s and hellenisms. In Venetian it represents , and in Ligurian the
voiced postalveolar fricative A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiced postalveol ...
. Italian does not use this letter in native words. :Y: This letter is not used in most languages, with the prominent exceptions of French and Spanish, where it represents before vowels (or various similar fricatives such as the palatal fricative , in Spanish), and the vowel or
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are th ...
elsewhere. :Z: In most languages it represents the sound . However, in Italian it denotes the affricates and (which are two separate phonemes, but rarely contrast; among the few examples of minimal pairs are "ray" with , "race" with (note that both are phonetically long between vowels); in Romansh the voiceless affricate ; and in Galician and Spanish it denotes either the
voiceless dental fricative The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is e ...
or . Otherwise, letters that are not combined as digraphs generally represent the same phonemes as suggested by the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
(IPA), whose design was, in fact, greatly influenced by 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 phonemic value. The concept (but not the actual combinations) is derived 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 ''H'' represented what sounded to the Romans like an following , , and respectively. Some of the digraphs used in modern scripts are: :CI: used in Italian, Romance languages in Italy, Corsican and Romanian to represent before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''. :CH: used in Italian, Romance languages in Italy, Corsican, Romanian, Romansh and Sardinian to represent before ''E'' or ''I'' (including yod ); in
Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts ...
, Spanish, Astur-leonese and Galician; or in Romansh before ''A'', ''O'' or ''U''; and in most other languages. In Catalan it is used in some old spelling conventions for . :DD: used in Sicilian and Sardinian to represent the voiced retroflex plosive . In recent history more accurately transcribed as ''DDH''. :DJ: used in Walloon and Catalan for . :GI: used in Italian, Romance languages in Italy, Corsican and Romanian to represent before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U'', and in Romansh to represent or or (before ''A'', ''E'', ''O'', and ''U'') or :GH: used in Italian, Romance languages in Italy, Corsican, Romanian, Romansh and Sardinian to represent before ''E'' or ''I'' (including yod ), and in Galician for the
voiceless pharyngeal fricative The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is an h-bar, , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is X\. In the transc ...
(not standard sound). :GL: used in Romansh before consonants and ''I'' and at the end of words for . :GLI: used in Italian and Corsican for and Romansh for . :GN: used in French, some Romance languages in Italy, Corsican, Romansh Walloon for , as in ''champignon''; in Italian to represent , as in "ogni" or "lo gnocco". :GU: used before ''E'' or ''I'' to represent or in all Romance languages except Italian, Romance languages in Italy, Corsican, Romansh, and Romanian, which use GH instead. :IG: used at the end of word in Catalan for , as in ''maig'', ''safareig'' or ''enmig''. :IX: used between vowels or at the end of word in Catalan for , as in ''caixa'' or ''calaix''. :JH: used in Walloon for /ʒ/ or /h/. :LH: used in Portuguese and Occitan . :LL: used in Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Astur-leonese, 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). As in Italian, it is used in Occitan for a
long Long may refer to: Measurement * Long, characteristic of something of great duration * Long, characteristic of something of great length * Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate * Longa (music), note value in early music men ...
. :L·L: used in Catalan for a geminate consonant . :NH: used in Portuguese and Occitan for , used in official Galician for . :N-: used in Piedmontese and Ligurian for between two vowels. :NN: used in Leonese for , in Italian for geminate . :NY: used in Catalan and Walloon for . :QU: represents in Italian, Romance languages in Italy, and Romansh; in French, Astur-leonese (normally before ''e'' or ''i''); (before ''e'' or ''i'') or (normally before ''a'' or ''o'') in Occitan, Catalan and Portuguese; in Spanish (always before ''e'' or ''i''). :RR: used between vowels in several languages (Occitan, Catalan, Spanish) to denote a trilled or a
guttural R Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of the vocal tract (usually with the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Speakers of languages ...
, instead of the flap . :SC: used before ''E'' or ''I'' in Italian, Romance languages in Italy as , in European Portuguese as and in French, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan and Latin American Spanish as in words of certain etymology (notice this would represent in standard peninsular Spanish) :SCH: used in Romansh for or , in Italian for before ''E'' or ''I'', including yod . :SCI: used in Italian, Romance languages in Italy, and Corsican to represent before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''. :SH: used in Aranese Occitan and Walloon for . :SS: used in French, Portuguese, Piedmontese, Romansh, Occitan, and Catalan for between vowels, in Italian, Romance languages of Italy, and Corsican for long . :TS: used in Catalan for . :TSH: used in Walloon for /tʃ/. :TG: used in Romansh for or . In Catalan is used for before ''E'' and ''I'', as in ''metge'' or ''fetge''. :TH: used in Jèrriais for ; used in Aranese for either or . :TJ: used between vowels and before ''A'', ''O'' or ''U'', in Catalan for , as in ''sotjar'' or ''mitjó''. :TSCH: used in Romansh for . :TX: used at the beginning or at the end of word or between vowels in Catalan for , as in ''txec'', ''esquitx'' or ''atxa''. :TZ: used in Catalan for . :XH: used in Walloon for /ʃ/ or /h/, depending on the dialect. 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 Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words and ...
spellings, which now represent or , , and , respectively.


Double consonants

Gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...
, in the languages where it occurs, is usually indicated by doubling the consonant, except when it does not contrast phonemically with the corresponding short consonant, in which case gemination is not indicated. In
Jèrriais (french: Jersiais, also known as the Jersey Language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an island ...
, long consonants are marked with an apostrophe: is a long , is a long , and is a long . The phonemic contrast between geminate and single consonants is widespread in Italian, and normally indicated in the traditional orthography: 'done' vs. 'fate, destiny'; 's/he, it fell' vs. 's/he, it falls'. The double consonants in French orthography, however, are merely etymological. In Catalan, the gemination of is marked by a ("flying point"): .


Diacritics

Romance languages also introduced various marks (
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s) that may be attached to some letters, for various purposes. In some cases, diacritics are used as an alternative to digraphs and trigraphs; namely to represent a larger number of sounds than would be possible with the basic alphabet, or to distinguish between sounds that were previously written the same. Diacritics are also used to mark word stress, to indicate exceptional pronunciation of letters in certain words, and to distinguish words with same pronunciation (
homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
s). Depending on the language, some letter-diacritic combinations may be considered distinct letters, e.g. for the purposes of lexical sorting. This is the case, for example, of Romanian ''ș'' () and Spanish ''ñ'' (). The following are the most common use of diacritics in Romance languages. *Vowel quality: the system of marking
close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one th ...
s with an
acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed c ...
, ''é'', and
open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one third ...
s with a
grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using ...
, ''è'', is widely used (e.g. Catalan, French, Italian). Portuguese, however, uses the
circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around" ...
(''ê'') for the former, and the acute (''é''), for the latter. Some minority Romance languages use an umlaut (diaeresis mark) in the case of ''ä, ö, ü'' to indicate fronted vowel variants, as in German. Centralized vowels () are indicated variously (''â'' in Portuguese, ''ă/î'' in Romanian, ''ë'' in Piedmontese, etc.). In French, Occitan and Romanian, these accents are used whenever necessary to distinguish the appropriate vowel quality, but in the other languages, they are used only when it is necessary to mark unpredictable stress, or in some cases to distinguish homophones. *Vowel length: French uses a circumflex to indicate what had been a
long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
(although nowadays this rather indicates a difference in vowel quality, if it has any effect at all on pronunciation). This same usage is found in some minority languages. *Nasality: Portuguese marks
nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
s with a tilde (''ã'') when they occur before other written vowels and in some other instances. *Palatalization: some historical
palatalization Palatalization may refer to: *Palatalization (phonetics), the phonetic feature of palatal secondary articulation *Palatalization (sound change) Palatalization is a historical-linguistic sound change that results in a palatalized articulation ...
s are indicated with the
cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan, French, and Portuguese (called cedilha) it is used only under the ...
(''ç'') in French, Catalan, Occitan and Portuguese. In Spanish and several other world languages influenced by it, the grapheme '' ñ'' represents a
palatal nasal The voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter ''n'' with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bott ...
consonant. *Separate pronunciation: when a vowel and another letter that would normally be combined into a digraph with a single sound are exceptionally pronounced apart, this is often indicated with a diaeresis mark on the vowel. This is particularly common in the case of ''gü'' /ɡw/ before ''e'' or ''i'', because plain ''gu'' in this case would be pronounced /ɡ/. This usage occurs in Spanish, French, Catalan and Occitan, and occurred before the 2009 spelling reform in Brazilian Portuguese. French also uses the diaeresis on the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate that both are pronounced separately, as in ''Noël'' "Christmas" and ''haïr'' "to hate". *Stress: the stressed vowel in a polysyllabic word may be indicated with an accent, when it cannot be predicted by rule. In Italian, Portuguese and Catalan, the choice of accent (acute, grave or circumflex) may depend on vowel quality. When no quality needs to be indicated, an acute accent is normally used (''ú''), but Italian and Romansh use a grave accent (''ù''). Portuguese puts a diacritic on all stressed monosyllables that end in ''a e o as es os'', to distinguish them from unstressed function words: ''chá'' "tea", ''más'' "bad (fem. pl.)", ''sé'' "seat (of government)", ''dê'' "give! (imperative)", ''mês'' "month", ''só'' "only", ''nós'' "we" (cf. ''mas'' "but", ''se'' "if/oneself", ''de'' "of", ''nos'' "us"). Word-final stressed vowels in polysyllables are marked by the grave accent in Italian, thus ''università'' "university/universities", ''virtù'' "virtue/virtues", resulting in occasional minimal or near-minimal pairs such as ''parlo'' "I speak" ≠ ''parlò'' "s/he spoke", ''capi'' "heads, bosses" ≠ ''capì'' "s/he understood", ''gravita'' "it, s'/he gravitates" ≠ ''gravità'' "gravity, seriousness". *Homophones: words (especially monosyllables) that are pronounced exactly or nearly the same way and are spelled identically, but have different meanings, can be differentiated by a diacritic. Typically, if one of the pair is stressed and the other isn't, the stressed word gets the diacritic, using the appropriate diacritic for notating stressed syllables (see above). Portuguese does this consistently as part of notating stress in certain monosyllables, whether or not there is an unstressed homophone (see examples above). Spanish also has many pairs of identically pronounced words distinguished by an acute accent on the stressed word: ''si'' "if" vs. ''sí'' "yes", ''mas'' "but" vs. ''más'' "more", ''mi'' "my" vs. ''mí'' "me", ''se'' "oneself" vs. ''sé'' "I know", ''te'' "you (object)" vs. ''té'' "tea", ''que/quien/cuando/como'' "that/who/when/how" vs. ''qué/quién/cuándo/cómo'' "what?/who?/when?/how?", etc. A similar strategy is common for monosyllables in writing Italian, but not necessarily determined by stress: stressed ''dà'' "it, s/he gives" vs. unstressed ''da'' "by, from", but also ''tè'' "tea" and ''te'' "you", both capable of bearing phrasal stress. Catalan has some pairs where both words are stressed, and one is distinguished by a vowel-quality diacritic, e.g. ''os'' "bone" vs. ''ós'' "bear". When no vowel-quality needs distinguishing, French and Catalan use a
grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using ...
: French ''ou'' "or" vs. ''où'' "where", French ''la'' "the" vs. ''là'' "there", Catalan ''ma'' "my" vs. ''mà'' "hand".


Upper and lower case

Most languages are written with a mixture of two distinct but phonetically identical variants or " cases" of the alphabet:
majuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
("uppercase" or "capital letters"), derived from Roman stone-carved letter shapes, and minuscule ("lowercase"), derived from Carolingian writing and Medieval
quill pen A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, the metal- nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventual ...
handwriting which were later adapted by printers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In particular, all Romance languages 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, 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 tables below provide a vocabulary comparison that illustrates a number of examples of sound shifts that have occurred between Latin and Romance languages. Words are given in their conventional spellings. In addition, for French the actual pronunciation is given, due to the dramatic differences between spelling and pronunciation. (French spelling approximately reflects the pronunciation of
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intell ...
, c. 1200 AD.)


Degrees of

lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...
among the Romance languages

Data from
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
:
''Ethnologue, Languages of the World,'' 15th edition, SIL International, 2005.


See also

* Romance languages linguistics *
Italo-Celtic In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. There is controversy about the causes ...
*
Romance peoples The Romance-speaking world, Romanophone world, Neolatin world, or Latin-speaking world, is the part of the world where Romance languages (those evolved from Latin) are either official, co-official, or significantly used, comprising Latin Europe a ...
*
Legacy of the Roman Empire The legacy of the Roman Empire has been varied and significant, comparable to that of other hegemonic polities of world history (e.g. Persian Empire, ancient Egypt or imperial China). The Roman Empire, itself built upon the legacy of other ...
*
Southern Romance The Southern Romance languages are a primary branch of the Romance languages. According to the classification of linguists such as Leonard (1980) and Agard (1984), the Southern Romance family is composed of Sardinian, Corsican, and the souther ...
*
African Romance African Romance or African Latin is an extinct Romance language that was spoken in the Roman province of Africa by the Roman Africans during the later Roman and early Byzantine Empires, and several centuries after the annexation of the region ...
*
British Latin British Latin or British Vulgar Latin was the Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods. While Britain formed part of the Roman Empire, Latin became the principal language of the elite, especially in the more rom ...
* Moselle Romance *
Pannonian Romance Pannonian Romance was spoken by Romanized Celtic and Illyrian peoples that developed in Pannonia, between modern-day Vienna and Belgrade, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Despite the Romanized population being mentioned in sev ...
* Romance-speaking Africa *
Romance-speaking Europe Most languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. Within Indo-European, the three largest phyla are Ro ...
*
Romance-speaking world The Romance-speaking world, Romanophone world, Neolatin world, or Latin-speaking world, is the part of the world where Romance languages (those evolved from Latin) are either official, co-official, or significantly used, comprising Latin Europe a ...


Notes


References

Overviews: *Frederick Browning Agard. ''A Course in Romance Linguistics''. Vol. 1: ''A Synchronic View'', Vol. 2: ''A Diachronic View''. Georgetown University Press, 1984. * Reprint 2003. * *Gerhard Ernst et al., eds. ''Romanische Sprachgeschichte: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen''. 3 vols. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003 (vol. 1), 2006 (vol. 2). * *Martin Maiden, John Charles Smith & Adam Ledgeway, eds., ''The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages''. Vol. 1: ''Structures'', Vol. 2: ''Contexts''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011 (vol. 1) & 2013 (vol. 2). *Martin Maiden & Adam Ledgeway, eds. ''The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. * * Phonology: * *Cravens, Thomas D. ''Comparative Historical Dialectology: Italo-Romance Clues to Ibero-Romance Sound Chang''e. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. *Sónia Frota & Pilar Prieto, eds. ''Intonation in Romance''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015. *Christoph Gabriel & Conxita Lleó, eds. ''Intonational Phrasing in Romance and Germanic: Cross-Linguistic and Bilingual studies''. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. *Philippe Martin. ''The Structure of Spoken Language: Intonation in Romance''. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016. *Rodney Sampson. ''Vowel Prosthesis in Romance''. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Lexicon: * French: * * * Portuguese: * * Spanish: * * * * Italian: * * * Rhaeto-Romance: *John Haiman & Paola Benincà, eds., ''The Rhaeto-Romance Languages''. London: Routledge, 1992.


External links


Michael de Vaan, ''Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages,'' Brill, 2008, 826pp. (part available freely online)Michael Metzeltin, ''Las lenguas románicas estándar. Historia de su formación y de su uso'', Oviedo, 2004Orbis Latinus, site on Romance languagesHugh Wilkinson's papers on Romance LanguagesSpanish is a Romance language, but what does that have to do with the type of romance between lovers?
dictionary.com
Comparative Grammar of the Romance LanguagesComparison of the computer terms in Romance languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Romance languages Latino-Faliscan languages Articles citing Nationalencyklopedin Articles containing Medieval Latin-language text