Which major Romance language sounds least like the others, to you?

[Unurautare]

Come on, Latin is too well attested to have its phonology known, in spite of a few doubts. We have to bear in mind, though, that the Romance languages don't come from Classical Latin, but from spoken late Latin, which had already changed some phonological traits clearly.

Anyway, I particularly like the way all Romance languages have developed a nice phonology of their own. Those times of feeling proud of how close every Romance language was to Latin sound nowadays so medieval...

Italian sounds "sweet" while Latin(the one I've heard from various sources),Portuguese and Romanian sound more manly. I don't care which one is more Roman to be frank,but we get a cookie for still calling ourselves Romans.

[Peyrol]

Romanian is the closest to Latin. They even retain a few of the classic latin declinations which are not present in the rest of the family.

False.

Sardinian is the closest to latin. The use of declination in romanian is irrelevant: 25% of their vocabulary and grammatical structures are derived from the slavic languages.

[Unurautare]

False.

Sardinian is the closest to latin. The use of declination in romanian is irrelevant: 25% of their vocabulary and grammatical structures are derived from the slavic languages.

Can you give me examples of grammatical structures from slavic languages? Btw only 10-15% is slavic,and the very most is from Old Church Slavonic(the language invented by the Greeks for Orthodox converts,it was used in Romania the same way Latin was used in the West as administrative and church language).

[Peyrol]

Can you give me examples of grammatical structures from slavic languages? Btw only 10-15% is slavic,and the very most is from Old Church Slavonic(the language invented by the Greeks for Orthodox converts,it was used in Romania the same way Latin was used in the West as official and church language).

I'm not a linguist, i report only the studies:

A study done in 1949, which analyzed the evolutionary degree of languages in comparison to their inheritance language (in the case of Romance languages to Latin comparing phonology, inflection, discourse, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation) revealed the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin):[44]

Sardinian: 8%;
Italian: 12%;
Spanish: 20%;
Romanian: 23.5%;
Occitan: 25%;
Portuguese: 31%;
French: 44%.

The lexical similarity of Romanian with Italian has been estimated at 77%, followed by French at 75%, Sardinian 74%, Catalan 73%, Spanish 71%, Portuguese, and Rhaeto-Romance at 72%.

In modern times Romanian vocabulary has been strongly influenced by French, Italian and other languages.

However,i hear moldovan romanian every day (in my city lives 80,000 moldavians/romanians), also written, and have indeed a strong slavic influence especially in the pronunciation.

[Unurautare]

I'm not a linguist, i report only the studies:



However,i hear moldovan romanian every day (in my city lives 80,000 moldavians/romanians), also written, and have indeed a strong slavic influence especially in the pronunciation.

There are studies and studies. For Romanians in Romania the "Moldovans"(Rep.Moldova) speak Romanian with a Russian accent.
I've heard that people from Romanian Moldova(my region) have an accent like Italians from Rome,I only speak clear Romanian however.

[Comte Arnau]

We were talking here from a phonological point of view, and in that case, Sardinian is also the closest.

Sardinian keeps the k sounds before e/i, as in original Latin, while 'Eastern' (Romanian and Italian) changed it into ch, and 'Western' (French, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese) changed it first into ts, then into s (or also th in Spanish).

Latin for 'sky' = [KELU]:

- Sardinian = chelu [kélu]
- Italian = cielo [chèlo]
- Romanian = cer [cher]
- French = ciel [syèl]
- Catalan = cel [sèl]
- Spanish = cielo [thyélo / syélo]
- Portuguese = céu [séw]

Notice how only in Sardinian it is pronounced just like 2,000 years ago.

Latin short i and u often remain in Sardinian, while they have turned into e and o in the other Romance languages.

Latin for 'dry' = [SIKKU]:

- Sardinian = sicu [siku]
- Italian = secco [sékko]
- Romanian = sec [sek]
- French = sec [sèk]
- Catalan = sec [sèk]
- Spanish = seco [séko]
- Portuguese = seco [séku]

[Peyrol]

We were talking here from a phonological point of view, and in that case, Sardinian is also the closest.

Sardinian keeps the k sounds before e/i, as in original Latin, while 'Eastern' (Romanian and Italian) changed it into ch, and 'Western' (French, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese) changed it first into ts, then into s (or also th in Spanish).

Latin for 'sky' = [KELU]:

- Sardinian = chelu [kélu]
- Italian = cielo [chèlo]
- Romanian = cer [cher]
- French = ciel [syèl]
- Catalan = cel [sèl]
- Spanish = cielo [thyélo / syélo]
- Portuguese = céu [séw]

Notice how only in Sardinian it is pronounced just like 2,000 years ago.

Latin short i and u often remain in Sardinian, while they have turned into e and o in the other Romance languages.

Latin for 'dry' = [SIKKU]:

- Sardinian = sicu [siku]
- Italian = secco [sékko]
- Romanian = sec [sek]
- French = sec [sèk]
- Catalan = sec [sèk]
- Spanish = seco [séko]
- Portuguese = seco [séku]

Sardinian language (italian subtitles)

[YOUTUBE]DNfRtGxgUNo[/YOUTUBE]

indeed.

[Siginulfo]

I say Portuguese.