VERBS 1 COMPARATIVE ROMANCE

ENGLISH	LATIN/VULGAR L	ITALIAN	SPANISH	ROMANIAN	PORTUGUESE	FRENCH
TO CHOOSE	exeligere/ excolligere/allegere/eligere	scegliere	escoger	a alege	escolher	elire (and choisir)
TO DIE	morire	morire	morir	a muri	morrer	mourir
TO LIVE	vivere	vivere	vivir	vietui	viver	vivre                *habiter is inhabit while vivre is how and when person lives
TO LIVE (2)	habitare	abitare	habitar	NA	habitar	habiter            *habiter is inhabit while vivre is how and when person lives
TO LOSE	perdere	perdere	perder	a pierde	perder	perdre
TO LOVE	amare	amare	amar	a iubi	amar	aimer
TO MAKE OR TO DO	facere	fare	hacer* words that begin in f in Italian begin with h in Spanish	a face	fazer	faire
TO THINK	pensare	pensare	pensar	a gandi	pensar	penser
TO WIN	vincere/*wadaniare-gano/castigare	vincere	ganar/vencer	a castiga	ganhar	gagner

I created this list number 5 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 root consonants c and m and p of CAMPUS), if the word begins with a consonant, or comparing the root of the verb abit-, 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 Latin word campus, the root consonants of c-mp 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 verbs (composed of the root and its verb conjugation suffix like are in habit+are) , with the translations in English, Latin/Vulgar Latin, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, and French. As Latin is the root language for Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese and French, the list gives the verb 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.

TO CHOOSE: The 5 languages of this list are widely divergent in their spelling and their word of origin from Latin, including exeligere, excolligere, allegere and eligere. The Italian verb, scegliere, with the root consonants sc-gl, partially derives from the Latin word, exeligere. Meanwhile, the Spanish verb, escoger, with the escog- root, derives from the Latin word excolligere, and so too the Portuguese verb escolher, with the escolh- root, derives from the Latin word excolligere. The Romanian verb allege, with the root alleg-, derives from the Latin word allegere. Finally, the French word elire, with the root elir-, derives from the Latin word eligere. (The French verb choisir (to choose) derives from Germanic sources.)
Because of the word divergence between the five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the verb(s) between languages.

TO DIE: The Latin verb morire, with the root consonant pattern m-r, is retained in Italian morire, Spanish morir, Romanian muri and French mourir. First, the Italian word morire, with the root consonant pattern m-r, retains the original spelling of the original Latin. Then, the Spanish verb morir, with the consonant root pattern m-r, drops the final vowel e in the Latin suffix ire-.  The Romanian verb muri, also retains the root consonant pattern m-r. Finally, the French verb mourir, with the root consonant pattern m-r, adds an additional vowel. The Portuguese verb, morrer, with the root consonant pattern m-rr, adds an additional r.
Because of the root consonant pattern similarity m-r in all five languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between languages.

TO LIVE: The Latin verb vivere, with the root consonant pattern v-v, is retained in the Italian vivere, with the root consonant pattern v-v, the Spanish viver, with the root consonant pattern v-v, the Portuguese viver, with the root consonant pattern v-v, and the French vivre, with the root consonant pattern v-v. The Romanian verb vietui, with the consonant pattern v-t, retains the initial consonant v.
Because of the root consonant pattern similarity v-v in four languages, and the root consonant partial pattern similarity in Romanian, there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between languages.

TO LIVE (2): In addition to the latin verb vivere, there is also a synonymous Latin verb habitare, with the root habit-. (Perhaps the distinction in meaning is that habiter is to inhabit while vivre is how and when person lives serves for Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French.) Three of the five languages retain the Latin root, so that the Spanish verb habitar, with the root habit-, the Portuguese verb habitar, with the root habit-, and the French verb habiter, with the root habit- show a strong match. The Italian verb abitare, with the root abit- drops the initial h, but is still a strong match to the previous three languages. Oddly, Romanian has not retained a verb stemming from the Latin habitar, so that there is no verb matching the other four languages. (I wonder if a case can be made for the Latin verb habitare to be a verb that was important to the Romance languages of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French enough to be retained through history. What process of language change occurred in Romania to not retain the Latin verb habitare?)
Because of the root pattern similarity habit- in three of the four  languages, and the root pattern similarity of abit- in Italian, there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between the four  languages.

TO LOSE: The Latin verb perdere, with the root consent pattern p-rd, is retained in Italian verb perdere, with the root consonant p-rd, the Spanish verb perder, with the consonant p-rd, the Romanian verb pierde, with the root consonant p-rd, the Portuguese verb perder , with the root consonant p-rd and the French verb perdre, with the root consonant p-rd.
Because of the root consonant pattern similarity in all languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between the four  languages.

TO LOVE: The Latin verb amare, with the root amar-, is retained in three of the five languages, the Italian verb amare, with the root amar-, the Spanish verb amar, with the root amar-, and the Portuguese verb amar, with the root amar-. The French verb aimer, adds i and e to the Latin root. However, the Romanian verb iubi derives from a non Latin source.
Because of the root consonant pattern similarity in four of the five languages, there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between the four languages. Yet, the Romanian verb is divergent with no match to the four other languages.

TO MAKE OR DO: The Latin verb facere, with the root f-c, is partially retained in the Romanian verb face, with the root consonants f-c. Then, the Portuguese fazer, with the root consonants f-z, where the Portuguese substitute the z for the Latin c. Then the Italian verb fare, retains the consonant f, drops the consonant c and keeps the r consonant. The French verb faire, retains the consonant f, drops the consonant c, and keeps the r. Finally, the Spanish hacer, with the consonant h-c, illustrates the Spanish language substitution of h for the Latin/Italian f.
Because of the root consonant pattern similarity in four of the five languages (Romanian, Italian, Portuguese, and French), there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between the four languages. Yet, the Spanish verb is partially divergent with a poor match.

TO THINK: The Latin verb pensare, with the root consonants p-ns, is retained in four of the five languages. First, the Italian verb pensare, with the root consonants p-ns, followed by the Spanish verb pensar, with the root consonants p-ns,  Then the Portuguese verb pensar, with the root consonants p-ns, and finishing with the French verb penser, with the root consonants p-ns. However, the Romanian verb gandi, is derived from a Hungarian verb.
Because of the root consonant pattern similarity in four of the five languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French), there is a strong match of recognizing the verb between the four languages. Yet, the Romanian verb is partially divergent with a poor match.

TO WIN: The 5 languages of this list are widely divergent in their spelling and their word of origin from multiple languages. First, the Latin vincere, with the root consonants v-nc, is retained in the Italian verb vincere, with the root consonants v-nc and the Spanish verb vencer, with the root v-nc. Second, the Gothic word ganan with the root consonants g-n, is the source for the Spanish ganar, with the root consonants g-n and the Portuguese ganhar, with the root consonants g-nh. Then the French verb gagner, with the root consonants g-gn, derives from the Germanic *wadanio. Finally, the Romanian verb castiga, with the root consonants c-st, derives from the Latin verb castigare, with the root consonants c-st.
Because of the word divergence between the five languages, there is a poor match of recognizing the verb(s) between languages.