Spanish Language - Relation To Other Languages

Relation To Other Languages

Further information: Comparison of Spanish and Portuguese

Spanish is closely related to the other Iberian Romance languages: Asturian, Aragonese, Catalan, Galician, Ladino, Leonese, Mirandese and Portuguese. Spanish language has many borrowings from others Iberian Romance languages and Italian and French languages have contributed in vocabulary too.

It should be noted that although Portuguese and Spanish are very closely related, particularly in vocabulary (89% lexically similar according to the Ethnologue of Languages), syntax and grammar, there are also some differences that don't exist between Catalan and Portuguese. Although Spanish and Portuguese are widely considered to be mutually intelligible, it has been noted that while most Portuguese speakers can understand spoken Spanish with little difficulty, Spanish speakers face more difficulty in understanding spoken Portuguese. The written forms are considered to be equally intelligible, however.

Read more about this topic:  Spanish Language

Famous quotes containing the words relation to, relation and/or languages:

    “The adolescent does not develop her identity and individuality by moving outside her family. She is not triggered by some magic unconscious dynamic whereby she rejects her family in favour of her peers or of a larger society.... She continues to develop in relation to her parents. Her mother continues to have more influence over her than either her father or her friends.”
    —Terri Apter (20th century)

    “When needs and means become abstract in quality, abstraction is also a character of the reciprocal relation of individuals to one another. This abstract character, universality, is the character of being recognized and is the moment which makes concrete, i.e. social, the isolated and abstract needs and their ways and means of satisfaction.”
    —Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    “I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.”
    —Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)