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Closer to Latin - Spanish or Italian
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Poll Question: Which language more closely resembles Latin
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Constantine XI View Drop Down
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Posts: 5711 		  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Closer to Latin - Spanish or Italian
    Posted: 26-Jun-2006 at 22:09

A little while age I was looking over some foreign texts when it struck me how much the Spanish I was reading had in common with Latin. We all know Spanish is a Romance language and it is to be expected, but what truly interested me here was that it appeared even more similar in its words to Latin than Italian did. Having little skill in Latin or Italian, I was wondering if some of our more linguistically experienced members have anything to say on the matter. It just seems to me from what I have seen that Spanish retains a stronger bond to Latin, it would be ironic that the language which succeeded Latin on the peninsula where it was born would have less in common than the peninsula to where Latin was exported.
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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 03:18
Originally posted by Constantine XI

A little while age I was looking over some foreign texts when it struck me how much the Spanish I was reading had in common with Latin. We all know Spanish is a Romance language and it is to be expected, but what truly interested me here was that it appeared even more similar in its words to Latin than Italian did. Having little skill in Latin or Italian, I was wondering if some of our more linguistically experienced members have anything to say on the matter. It just seems to me from what I have seen that Spanish retains a stronger bond to Latin, it would be ironic that the language which succeeded Latin on the peninsula where it was born would have less in common than the peninsula to where Latin was exported.

 
 
I wouldn't say that Spanish is closer than Italian to their common source, Latin.
 
Look at here for a sample:
 
LATIN: Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam.
 
FRENCH: Car Dieu a tant aim le monde qu'il a donn son Fils unique, afin que quiconque croit en lui ne prisse point, mais qu'il ait la vie ternelle.
 
ITALIAN: Poich Iddio ha tanto amato il mondo, che ha dato il suo unigenito Figliuolo, affinch chiunche crede in lui non perisca, ma abbia vita eterna.
 
PORTUGUESE: Porque Deus amou o mundo de tal maneira, que deu o seu Filho unignito, para que todo aqule cr no perea, mas tenha a vida eterna.
 
SPANISH: Porque de tal manera am Dios al mundo, que ha dado a su Hijo unignito, para que todo aquel que en l cree, no se pierda, mas tenga vida eterna.
 
ENGLISH: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
 
The source for the upper sample is the wonderful site Orbis Latinus ( http://www.orbilat.com/ ).
 
From the same site you can compare the percentage of the lexical similarities amongst the various romance languages: http://www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/Romance_Languages.html
 
As you can see, the closest similarities are between Italian and French (89%) - I guess because Italian inherited a lot of French words (as English did) from Middle Age on - and between Spanish and Portuguese (89%). The similarity between Italian and Spanish is 82%.
The least similarity is between Rumanian and other romance languages, but it's closer to Italian (77%). 
 
You can also see here the derivation of romance languages from Latin:
http://www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/Classification_according_to_Hall.html
 
 
 
 
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Posts: 1423 		  Quote Menumorut Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 03:39
    Look the Romanian variant:

Pentru ca Dumnezeu asa a iubit lumea, nct L-a dat pe singurul sau Fiu, ca acela care crede n El sa nu piara ci sa aiba viata vesnica.
    

Edited by Menumorut - 27-Jun-2006 at 03:39

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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 04:06
Originally posted by Menumorut

    Look the Romanian variant:

Pentru ca Dumnezeu asa a iubit lumea, nct L-a dat pe singurul sau Fiu, ca acela care crede n El sa nu piara ci sa aiba viata vesnica.
    
 
 
Thanks for your contribution Smile
 
I wonder if the Rumanian word Dumnezeu is corresponding to the Italian word Domineddio (Lord God) ...
 
I guess that the words iubit and vesnica could be of not Latin origin or at least I can't recognize their Latin source.
 
Ciao Smile
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Posts: 1066 		  Quote The Chargemaster Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 04:57
Originally posted by Leonardo

I guess that the words iubit and vesnica could be of not Latin origin or at least I can't recognize their Latin source.

I am not sure about the word "vesnica", but the romanian word "iubit" is not of latin origin, but is of slavic origin.
Te iubit = (I) love you(or of that sort).
And there are many slavic words in the today`s romanian language.



Edited by The Chargemaster - 27-Jun-2006 at 05:00
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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 06:42
Originally posted by The Chargemaster

Originally posted by Leonardo

I guess that the words iubit and vesnica could be of not Latin origin or at least I can't recognize their Latin source.

I am not sure about the word "vesnica", but the romanian word "iubit" is not of latin origin, but is of slavic origin.
Te iubit = (I) love you(or of that sort).
And there are many slavic words in the today`s romanian language.

 
 
 
 
You are probably right.
 
From the site I cited in my first post I have found this:
 

"The function words and inflectional patterns are of Latin origin. The Rumanian language preserved less than 22% of the Pan-Romance word stock (some 107 of a total of 488 words); it is remarkable that the Latin words concerning urban life were entirely absent in Rumanian. Slavic languages (mainly Old Church Slavonic and the dialects of Northern Bulgaria) provided for about 46% of the vocabulary, but since the 19th century there was launched a systematic campaign of introducing Latin and French words, while the Slavic words were purged or become obsolete. Nevertheless, 17% of modern Rumanian vocabulary consists of Slavic words and they give the spoken languge a specific emotional flavor. According to the linguist Alexandru Niculescu "Rumanian is the only Romance language that has failed to preserve amor, carus, amare, sponsa, etc., replacing them by [the Slavic words] dragoste love, drag dear, a iubi to love, nevastă wife, logodnă betrothal, a logodi to betrothe".

Turkish, Greek, Hungarian and Albanian had also provided a lot of words to Rumanian. "
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Posts: 598 		  Quote Arbr Z Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 08:17
Albanian is referred as a highly latin influenced language. I would say that in this case this is not so obvious
 
Se Zoti (Perendia) aq shume e deshi boten, sa e dha Birin e tij te vetem, qe te mos humbase kushdo qe beson ne Te, por te kete jeten e perjetshme (Gjoni 3:16)
Prej heshtjes...!
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Posts: 3387 		  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 10:59
Here is a neat little schedule! It shows the Indo-European connections of words. So in fact words can look a lot alike in very different languages...
Perhaps not precisely on the subject, but I think it's so cool....
PIE is Proto-Indo-European, a common ancestor of Indo European languages based on theory alone, as there is no written proof of its existance.
 
 
PIE               peter      mater-    bhrater-    swesor-      kuon-    dont-
Old English  faeder     modor     broor     sweostor    hund     toth
German        Vater      Mutter     Bruder     Schwester   Hund    Zahn
Old Norse     Fair       moir      broir      systir          Hundr    tonn
Gothic           fadar                   broar      swistar       hunds    tunus
Latin             pater     mater      frater         soror          canis     dentis
Greek           pater      meter      phrater                        kuon     odontos
Russian                       mat'        brat           sestra        suka     
Lithuanian                  mote       brolis          sesuo        suo       dantis
Irish (Gaelic) athir      mathir     brathis        sinr            cu          det
Sanskrit        pitar-     mater-     bhrathar-   svasar-      cvan-     dant-
 
ps. is a soft th, is a storng th.
 
 

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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jun-2006 at 13:49
Originally posted by Arbr Z

Albanian is referred as a highly latin influenced language. I would say that in this case this is not so obvious
 
Se Zoti (Perendia) aq shume e deshi boten, sa e dha Birin e tij te vetem, qe te mos humbase kushdo qe beson ne Te, por te kete jeten e perjetshme (Gjoni 3:16)
 
 
You are probably right that Albanian, as every other European language has a lot of loan words from Latin (and from Greek, of course), but only Romance languages are genetically related to Latin, that is they are the evolution of the same (ancient) language.
 
Ciao Smile
 
 
 
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Some Romance languages ,which are not as close as Italian is to the Latin language,have preserved Latin words that are not found in standard Italian.Even in a Romance language which is not very close to Latin one can find unique words from vulgar Latin which do not exist in Romance languages which are very close to Latin.
Originally posted by Leonardo

 
I wonder if the Rumanian word Dumnezeu is corresponding to the Italian word Domineddio (Lord God) ...
 


The words come from Latin Dominus Deus.In Balkan Romance,"d" was pronounced sometimes as "tz" or "z".I don't know why this happened and how this linguistic phenomenon is called






Edited by GuardOfHistory - 29-Jun-2006 at 06:26
Vlachs and Arvanites,THE GUARDS of Hellenism
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Posts: 778 		  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Jun-2006 at 06:26
Originally posted by GuardOfHistory

Originally posted by Leonardo

 
I wonder if the Rumanian word Dumnezeu is corresponding to the Italian word Domineddio (Lord God) ...
 


The words come from Latin Dominus Deus.In Balkan Romance,"d" was pronounced sometimes as "tz" or "z".I don't know why this happened and how this linguistic phenomenon is called.
Another phenomenon is the pronunciation of "ct" as "pt" and the pronunciation of "q" as "p"
Lactem became laptu(milk),lucta became lupta or alupta(battle).
Aqua became in Balkan Romance languages apu.

 
 
Hi and thanks for your contribution Smile
 
I'm not a linguist so I can't answer your interesting question. I could only say that probably Dumnezeu and Domineddio derive not from the nominative (Dominus Deus) but from the vocative: Domine Deu[s].
 
 
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RightThumbs UpIt is more probable that they come from the vocative

Edited by GuardOfHistory - 29-Jun-2006 at 06:29
Vlachs and Arvanites,THE GUARDS of Hellenism
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Posts: 485 		  Quote Serge L Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jul-2006 at 12:53
Out of the top of my head, I read somewhere Italian lexicon is closer than any other romance language to Latin, since it was less influenced from other languages or group of languages, maybe for being located at the centre of the former empire (or, better, of the non-Greek speaking west part)

On the contrary, Spanish (and, on a lesser extent, Portuguese) was influenced by Arab, French by German languages and Rumanian, as previously noticed, by Slavic ones.
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jul-2006 at 14:57
In Romanian there's the word "eterna" synonymous with "vesnica", if you want closer Latin match. Also "de-a pururea" it's an interesting expression meaning forever and having a probable Latin origin and also being a more archaic form.
 
nevasta wife
Actually there are other synonymous words of Latin origin for "nevasta" in Romanian - "sotie" from "socius".
"Femeie" from "familia" and "muiere" from "mulier" mean also wife but also woman.
 
it is remarkable that the Latin words concerning urban life were entirely absent in Rumanian
That is false. For instance, "pamant", meaning "land, earth" is derived from Latin "pavimentum". "Biserica" meaning "church" is ultimately derived from Latin "basilica". There's indeed a deformation in meaning in some terms (like "pamant" - "pavimentum") due to the more severe degree of ruralization.
 
I also doubt the high percentage of Slavic words in older forms of Romanian language. Many linguists gave various different estimations and many of them are below the given one in this thread.
The first document in Romanian language that is the letter of Neacsu of Campulung (first half of 16th century) has a huge majority of Latin words.
 
 


Edited by Chilbudios - 03-Jul-2006 at 14:59
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Posts: 5711 		  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Jul-2006 at 22:04
Thanks for the replies on this one, seems most people think Italian is a closer descendant of Latin than Spanish.
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Posts: 1962 		  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jul-2006 at 20:15
Sardinian is especially close to Latin.
 
Arguably, there is no single "Italian language" because many regional dialects are distinct enough to qualify as seperate languages if Italy was not a unified country.  Though I imagine that modern transportation / communication netwroks have reduced the differences.
 
A question for Italians....
 
How distinct are regional Italian dialects still.  Could somebody form rural Sardiania really communicate with a Venetian? 
 
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Sardinian is considered a proper language not a dialect by many linguists and there are also different dialects of Sardinian language. I can't understand it and I'm Italian (from North-East). It's hard for me to understand dialects from outside my region if they are not spoken slowly.
 
Really nowadays there are no "pure" dialects but they are heavily influenced by standard Italian but also standard Italian is spoken with different accent in every region.
 
Linguists distinguish between northern dialects and central-southern dialects. The border is the so called Rimini- La Spezia line. This border corresponds more or less to the division between the pre-Roman proper Italian peninsula and the so called Cisalpine Gaul (the part of ancient Italy inhabited by Ligurians, Celts, Venetics and Rhetians).
 
 
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Posts: 1962 		  Quote Cryptic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Jul-2006 at 21:28
Originally posted by Leonardo

 
Really nowadays there are no "pure" dialects but they are heavily influenced by standard Italian but also standard Italian is spoken with different accent in every region.
 
Thank you for the very interesting map on Italian languages  / dialects.   I hope that the move towards Standard Italian can be reversed.  When regional dialects / languages die, a nation loses part of its culture. Cry The Germans recently started printing Children's books in regional dialect.  In the USA, we dont have dialects, but regional accents are diappearing Cry 
 
I wonder is some languages form seperate dialects easy.   I speak Spanish and can understand Mexicans, Cubans, Argentenians etc.  The accents are different, but there are very few vocabulary differences. 
In contrast Italy has many distict dialects and France appears to have some very distict dialects as well.
 
So a question to any French....
 
Are regional dialects in France still distinct?  Can somebody from Paris understand people from rural parts of the country? 
 
 


Edited by Cryptic - 07-Jul-2006 at 21:43
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I'm not French, but what I know is this: in the region which now is France, originally there were many languages spoken, not just dialects. Regions like Bretagne, Aquitaine and Provence all had very distinct languages. At some point in history, guess when nationalism came into fashion in the late 18th and 19th century, the speaking of other langhuages was actively discouraged. French was the only language allowed on schools, and conscripted men where stationed far from their own region, to make them communicate in French. This caused the many languages of France to decline. I think most of them have all but dissappeared by now, but there are some regional projects to save local languages.

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Posts: 65 		  Quote boomajoom Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jul-2006 at 01:25
There were fewer sound changes between Latin and Italian than Latin and Spanish. Also, Spanish was influenced a lot by Arabic from the Moors, while Italian remained pretty conservative in its loan words. I vote Italian.    
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