Romance Languages
In many of the Romance languages, the Vulgar Latin vowels e and o in stressed position sometimes underwent breaking. The result of breaking varies between languages: e and o become ie and ue in Spanish, but ea and oa in Romanian.
In some languages breaking is absent in some cases.
- Latin mortem "death" (acc.) → Spanish muerte (breaking), but French mort (no breaking)
- Latin festa "feast" (neuter plural) → Spanish fiesta, but Middle French feste, Modern French fête (no breaking)
Read more about this topic: Vowel Breaking
Famous quotes containing the words romance and/or languages:
“Twenty years of romance makes a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage makes her look like a public building.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Wealth is so much the greatest good that Fortune has to bestow that in the Latin and English languages it has usurped her name.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)