Spanish is a Romance language that has its roots in Latin, which is similar to many other languages such as French, Portuguese and Italian. Spanish is the Romance language with the largest number of speakers, with 20 countries in the world using it as an official language.

Spanish can sometimes feel that it is a language that is just on the edge of our understanding, even if we have little to no knowledge of the language ourselves. This is because many of the same words between English and Spanish sound quite similar. In fact, there are many languages that are similar to Spanish that will be discussed below.

Why Is Spanish Called A Romance Language?

Although the title ‘romance’ today is associated with love, Spanish is called a romance language simply because it originated from an area controlled by the Roman Empire, where Latin was used. To call something Romance meant that it was ‘in the style of Rome’. Today, it means languages that are related to Latin and therefore the Roman Empire.

Some may say that these languages do sound romantic, however, that is best left up to the individual to decide. Love can be expressed in all languages, however, some languages may sound more romantic to one person than the next.

Are Latin And Spanish Similar Languages?

There are similarities between Spanish and Latin, both in the words as well as the grammar. Obviously, a major difference between Spanish and Latin is that Latin is considered a ‘dead’ language, meaning that it is no longer spoken by native speakers, or used in everyday use.

The grammar in Spanish is more simplified as living languages change over time. Similar to comparing Shakesperean English to Modern English, there are many differences and it is difficult to understand old English. In the same way, Latin and Spanish are similar but quite different.

How Similiar Are Portuguese and Spanish?

Spanish and Portuguese are both romance languages and have an almost 90% vocabulary similarity. Texts in one language can be mostly understood by a reader from the other language, however, this is not the case in spoken communication. Portuguese speakers would have an easier time understanding Spanish than Spanish speakers would have in understanding Portuguese.

Grammatically both languages are quite similar which is why texts are able to be understood across both languages. This ability for speakers of one language to be able to understand speakers from another language better than vice versa is no one has asymmetric mutual intelligibility.

This is similar to the difference between Dutch and German languages, in that there are some similarities between the two languages but that they are different enough to be separate.

As both languages are derived from Latin there are bound to be some similarities between the two.

Are Italian And Spanish Similar Languages?

Italian and Spanish are similar languages, they both stem from Latin. This means that they both have similar words for the same thing as well as a similar grammatical structure. There are many words that are the same or very similar, there are differences that can make it difficult for a Spanish speaker to understand an Italian speaker or vice versa.

For example, verb conjugations and the plural endings for nouns are different in both languages. This can make it difficult for speakers of the other language to fully understand what is being said. Both Italian and Spanish conjugate their verbs in ways that signal the tense as well as the doer of the verb. This means that without fully understanding the verb, it is quite difficult to completely understand the sentence.