From a Historical and Geographical point of view
2006-11-26 03:36:02 · 6 answers · asked by desistil 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Well, the Roman Empire conquered most of Europe, including what today is Romania ( which comes from the word Roman ) and its language ( Latin ) was the basis or root, as you wish to call it, for the evolution of several European languages, mixed with the language of the people who came after the Roman Empire had fallen in 476. The capital of the Empire was Rome, nowadays the capital of Italy.
Therefore, Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian, Portuguese come from the language spoken by the empire, the Latin. Thus, they are very similar.
In Spain, the invading tribes were the Visigoths, or Goths of the west. In Italy, the invading tribes were the Ostrogoths, or Goths of the east. In France, were the Franks. All of these were Germanic tribes.
In Romania the invaders were Slavic tribes and that makes Romanian a little different from the other languages, but it kept many Latin words.
2006-11-26 06:56:08 · answer #1 · answered by Dios es amor 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Roman empire occupied the area and Latin obviously influenced the local language(s). This is the same reason that many English words have Latin roots and it holds for most European languages.
2006-11-26 05:26:34 · answer #2 · answered by hernandoguy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Both are Romance languages. You will see similarities in French, Spanish, and Portuguese...
take a look at this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages
2006-11-26 03:56:26 · answer #3 · answered by flores.alaranjadas 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I don't know, but Italian and Spanish are VERY similar. Which is funny, because Spain doesn't even border Italy.
2006-11-26 04:05:29 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Well, linguistically they both came from Latin.
2006-11-26 03:43:30 · answer #5 · answered by Purdey EP 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
duh-can you be serious?
2006-11-26 04:09:10 · answer #6 · answered by Desperado 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋