MAP WORDS IN COMPARATIVE ROMANCE

ENGLISH	LATIN/VULGAR L	ITALIAN	SPANISH	ROMANIAN	PORTUGUESE	FRENCH
CITY	civitas/villa	citta	ciudad	oras mare	cidade	ville
CLOUD	nubila	nuvola	nube	nor	nuvem	nuage
HILL	collis	collina	colina	colina	colina	colline
MOUNTAIN	montania	montagna	montana	munte	montanha/monte	montagne
PLATEAU	plattus	altopiano	meseta	platou/podis	planalto	plateau
RIVER	flumen/fluvius/ rius	fiume	rio	rau/fluvio	rio	flueve/riviere
ROAD	strata/ carreta	strada	carretera	drum/strata	caminho/estrada	route/voie
VALLEY	vallis	valle	valle	vale	vale	vallee

I created this list number 4 because I was curious to see how close these 5 languages might be to each other in written form. One tool that I would like to apply to this similarity/divergence is the consonant pattern exhibited among the words, by comparing how the consonants of the word match (like the consonants c - mp of CAMPUS), if the word begins with a consonant, or comparing the root of the word match (like out of ORTO), if the word begins with a vowel. I have been using this approach on the language learning apps, especially with Romanian and Portuguese. It has been very helpful.

For example, in looking at the chart, the root consonants c-mp of the Latin word CAMPUS is strongly similar among all 5 language words, meaning that if I know the word in Latin or Italian, then I can guess, with a good degree of accuracy, the word in the other four languages (Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, French).

For this week’s list, I have made a list of randomly chosen words (nouns), with the translations in English, Latin/Vulgar Latin/ Italian/ Spanish/ Romanian/Portuguese/French. As Latin is the root language for Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and French, the list gives the word in each of these 5 languages. The list of these 5 languages is based on similarity/divergence to Latin, with the assumption that Italian may be the language most similar to Latin and French may be the most divergent from Latin.

CITY: The 5 languages of this list are widely divergent in their choice of words for city. The 5 languages draw from two Latin words (civitas and villa), making a comparative match difficult between the 5. The first of these two words is the Latin civitas, where the Latin consonants c-v-t are not retained in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, with only the initial consonant c being preserved. The Italian word citta has the consonants c-tt, while Spanish and Portuguese have the consonants c-d-d. Romanian uses a different word oras mare. Finally, The Latin word villa, with the consonants v-ll, is retained in the French word, ville, and the consonants v-ll.
Because of the consonant pattern divergence between all languages, there is a very poor match of recognizing the word between languages, with only Spanish and Portuguese have a strong similarity.

CLOUD: In the Latin word nubila, the consonants n-b-l are partially retained in the Italian word, nuvola. The Italian word changes the middle consonant v to a consonant b, while retained the initial consonant n and the l consonant after the b consonant, n-v-l. The Spanish word nube, retains the consonants n-b. The Romanian word nor, retains only the initial consonant n, while adding the consonant r. The Portuguese word never retains only the initial consonant n, and then has a consonant v-m. Finally, the French word nuage, retains the initial consonant n, but then adds the consonant g.
Because of the consonant pattern divergence between all languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the match between languages.


HILL: In the Latin word collis, the root consonants c-ll is retained in the Italian word, collins, with the consonants c-ll and the french word collide, with the consonants c-ll. Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese have the consonants c-l, dropping the second l consonant.
Because of the consonant pattern similarity between all languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the word between languages.

MOUNTAIN: In the Latin word montania, the consonants m-nt-n is retained in the Spanish word montana, with the consonants m-nt-n and the The Portuguese word montanha, with the consonants m-nt-n  The Italian word Montagna, with the consonants m-nt-gn, and French word montagne, with the consonants m-nt-gn matching each other. The Romanian word Munte, with the consonants m-nt, does not retain the final n consonant. (Please note that the Italian and French gn and the Portuguese nh have a unique pronunciation.)
Because of the consonant pattern similarity between all languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the word between languages.


PLATEAU: The Latin word plattus, with the consonants pl-tt, is partially retained in the Romanian word platou, with the consonants pl-t, and the French word plateau, with the consonants pl-t. The Italian word alto piano is divergent. The Spanish word peseta is divergent. The Portuguese word planate is divergent.
Because of the word divergence between three of the five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the word between languages.

RIVER: The Latin words flumen with the consonants fl-m, is partly retained in the Italian fiume, with the consonants f-m. Meanwhile, the Latin word fluvius, with the consonants fl-v is retained in the Romanian fluvio, with the consonants fl-v, and the French flueve, with the consonants fl-v. Finally, the Latin word rius, with the root riu, is retained in the Spanish rio and the Portuguese rio. The french word riviera, uses the ri root.
(Please note that French distinguishes between a “fleuve” , which flows into the sea, while a riviere, flows into another river or lake.)
Because of the word divergence between all five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the word between languages.

ROAD: The 5 languages pull their words for road from different latin word sources. One of the Romanian words, strata, with the consonants str-t, retains the latin word strata, with the consonants, str-t. Then, the Italian word, strada, with the consonant str-d, partially retains the Latin word, strata, with the consonants str-t. One of the Portuguese words, estrada, has the root estr-d. Meanwhile, the Spanish word carretera, with the root consonants c-rr-t, retains the Latin word, with consonants c-rr-t. The french words are pulled from different word origins.  (Please note that the French voie is used for freeways or lane in a road.)
Because of the word divergence between all five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the word between languages.


VALLEY: The Latin word vallis, with the consonants v-ll, is retained in 3 of the five languages. The Italian word, valle, with the consonants v-ll, the Spanish word valle, with the consonants v-ll, and the French word valley, with the consonants v-ll. meanwhile, Romanian word vale, with the consonants v-l and Portuguese word vale, with the consonants v-l partially retain the Latin consonant pattern. Because of the consonant pattern similarity between all five languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the word between languages.