What Makes Each of the Romance Languages Unique (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and more!)

This video covers each of the Romance Languages, namely Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, Asturian, Catalan, Occitan, Neapolitan, Venetian, Sardinian, Romansh, and Latin, and goes over their unique attributes!

Sources:
The Romance Languages, by Rebecca Posner
Modern Spanish Grammar, A Practical Guide, by Juan Kattán-Ibarra and Christopher J. Pountain
Portuguese, An Essential Grammar, by Amélia P,. Hutchinson, Janet Lloyd, Cristina Sousa
An Approach to the Asturian Language, by Frías Conde X.
Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar, by Max W. Wheeler, Alan Yates, Nicolau Dois
Phonetics and Phonology of Romance Languages: Occitan, by Damien Mooney
French Grammar and Usage, by Richard Towell, Roger Hawkins
Modern Italian Grammar, A Practical Guide, by Anna Proudfoot
The Rhaeto-Romance Languages, by John Haiman
Romanian: An Essential Grammar, by Ramona Gönczöl
Gildersleeve’s Latin Grammar, by Basil L. Gildersleeve

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:53 Common Features
5:43 Spanish
9:49 Portuguese
14:40 Asturian
17:04 Catalan
19:35 Occitan
22:02 French
27:22 Romansh
29:50 Italian
34:56 Neapolitan
37:21 Venetian
38:56 Sardinian
42:17 Romanian
46:24 Latin
48:49 Outro

[riverareyes]

I grew up thinking that the big 5 were the only romance languages. I'm so happy to have discovered that there's so many more, with communities that are trying to keep them alive.

[extravenusiano]

You forgot some contractions in portuguese, here's one that a lot of portuguese speakers forget too:
a + a = à, a + aquele = àquele

[coolconner]

Romanian is the purple sheep of the Romance family

[samuchase]

Fun fact, in Spanish you can also add the article in front of a proper name, but only when refering to friends and it's pretty informal

[FairyCRat]

As an Occitan, I'm glad that my ancestral language was mentioned, even if I don't speak a word of it unfortunately.

Also, since I'm also half-Belgian, I gotta mention that Belgian French (as well as Swiss French) doesn't have the wonky numbers, as they have dedicated words for 70 and 90, and Swiss French does too for 80.

[tony]

Spanish also has a neuter gender, it's pretty similar to Asturian pure neuter, it only applies to abstract nouns and it inflects very similar to the masculine so its usually overlooked, but it can change the meaning of a word, for example:
lo pequeño (neuter) ("the smallness" it references to the atribute of being small)
el pequeño (masculine) (something/someone masculine who is small)

[J.o.s.h.u.a.]

As a Sardinian speaker, your segment about Sardinian is very accurate! I am also glad that you mentioned some very important characteristics that many linguistics amateurs on the internet often ignore or don't speak about (mainly, the fact that Sardinian is not one single unified language and that the difference between dialects impacts phonology, grammar and vocabulary. Many people say that Sardinian is the closest Romance language to Latin because but it still preserves the old unpalatalised C's and G's, but this is only true for the Logudorese dialects). Some more characteristics that make Sardinian really unique:

1) Sardinian is the only language, together with the Balearic dialect of Catalan, whose articles developed from Latin ipse, ipsa. That means that the articles contain an S instead of an L, like in many other Romance languages.

2) The most important aspect of Sardinian phonology is the so-called paragogic vowel. This is a feature that evolved relatively recently, but it basically means that even if some words might end in a consonant in the written language, they can't end in that consonant in the spoken language. The phenomenon varies depending on how well you can speak Sardinian (people who speak better Italian than Sardinian, tend to use the paragogic vowel systematically with every word, whereas more proficient speakers only use it in set contexts), but it basically means that you have to repeat the vowel of the preceding syllable at the end of the word. This can be often heard with plural forms:

"Sa domu" (the house) is pronounced /za domu/
"Is domus" (the houses) is pronounced /iz domuzu).
Those who can't write Sardinian (which is many people, also due to the fact there is no standardised written language), often but incorrectly write things like "is domusu" for this reason.

[wrenisprobablybred]

Omg you're in a romance with a language? I wish you two well 🎉

[Ktlxst]

48:15
In latin there are six infinitives: amāre (present active) “to love”, amā(vi)sse (perfect active) ~“to have loved”, amātūrum esse (future active) ~“to will love”, amārī (present passive) “to be loved”, amātum esse (perfect passive) ~“to have been loved” and amātum īrī (future passive) ~“to will be loved”.

[dragskcinnay]

22:20 note: most "standard" (Parisian) French speakers don't use /ə/ anymore, merging with /ø/ (when it's not elided, which near-universal in casual speech); the distinctions between /e/ and /ε/, and between /ø/ and /œ/, are sometimes lost as well

[Nevrits]

Btw final o in brazilian portuguese is often pronounced [ʊ], or sometimes just [ʷ], or more extremely just straight up going silent. In European portuguese unstressed o and u both weaken to [ʊ] usually but often gets devoiced or straight up goes silent and possibly influencing previous consonants.

[artifactU]

i dont speak a romance language... does that make me... aromantic?

[maneliquet]

What an interesting video!! Catalan also has orthografic <ç> at the end of words, like feliç, 'happy'

[MinpikuWasTaken]

it's always a great day when a new LingoLizard video

[ValkyRiver]

24:07 â ê î ô û usually indicate that the word used to be spelled with that letter followed by an s, such as forêt (forest) and hôpital (hospital)

[jeremyallanhall]

Awesome video! I've been looking into exactly these connections and similarities recently as I began my Romanian learning journey. Neatly put together and very useful information 😊 Thank you!

[edgarmaestre]

Catalan here, great video! Greetins from the Pyrenees mountains

[seid]

4:43 Ladino: *stares deep to the ether**

[ХекфиВол]

Spanish, Italian, French and Romanian - 4 Romance languages are used along with English and Russian in one song in Eurovision:
Everywhere around the world
Io ti amo sempre uguale
Cada dia y cada noche
Люби, люби ты меня
Prends mon coeur, prends mon ame, ma vie, ma cherie,
Inima, spune-ea, aici casa ta.

[topazbutterfly]

I cracked a little when I saw “păsărică” as a diminutive example. We sometimes use that word to refer to a girl’s genitalia. I like your coverage, though. You were kind and considerate enough to include as many Romance languages as possible. They are highly disregarded and endangered because of the governments. There are these giants, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugues, and Romanian, which supress the other ones by declaring they are just dialects. As a Romanian, if there are any Aromanians, Istro-Romanians, or Megleno-Romanians reading this, I feel ashamed for the claims of the Romanian Academy.

Also, I felt a huge rush of dopamine when you indirectly said you had a boyfriend. Why is it always us, the gays, that are interested in linguistics and communication? (This is a joke, don’t attack me, please!)