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THE LANGUAGE > OTHER LANGUAGES in SPAIN
Spanish/Castilian has closest affinity to the other Spanish languages (from Latin) and dialects (from Spanish itself) spoken within current borders of Spain. Most are mutually intelligible among speakers without too much difficulty.
» Aragonese (aragonés)
It's an Occidental Romance Language spoken by less than 12,000 people
in the region of Aragon, West of Catalonia.
» Leonese (llïonés)
Leonese is a dialect from Leon and it's almost the same language as Asturian,
the region located right above Leon.
» Asturian (asturianu)
Asturian is a romance language spoken in the region of Asturias, in the
North of Spain. Less than 700,000 people speak Asturian.
» Galician (galego)
It's the local language from Galicia, derived from Latin, and closely
related to Portuguese. In the Middle Ages, Galician and Portuguese languages
began to diverge, a development hastened by political separation. There
remain many similarities between Portuguese and Galician. Orally, these
differences are comparable in scope to those between Flemish — a
type of Dutch spoken in Belgium — and standard Dutch.
» Portuguese (português):
There is generally a mutual understanding between the standard spoken
forms, though Spanish morphology and phonetics is much easier for a Portuguese
speaker to understand than vice versa.
Both Spanish and Portuguese are similar grammars and a majority of vocabulary
as well as a common history of influence of Arabic while great part of
the peninsula was under Islamic rule (both languages expanded over Islamic
territories).
» Extremaduran (extremeño)
This is a language spoken in small towns in Salamanca and Extremadura.
Its origins come from the Northern dialect called Asturian, and again,
it's quite similar.
» Catalan (català)
Spanish has different common features with Catalan, an East-Iberian language
which exhibits many Gallo-Romance traits. Likewise Portuguese, Spanish
morphology and phonetics is much easier for a Catalan speaker to understand
than the other way around. Catalan is closer to Occitan than Spanish and
Portuguese are between them.
» Occitan (aranès)
This dialect is spoken in a small region in Catalonia called "The
Valley of Aran". It's also spoken by a few people in Southern France.
Please, visit my SPANISH
LESSONS section to learn basic words and phrases.
I will increase this library over time. Read the expressions and also
hear the Spanish pronuntiation! How well can you pronounce it?
COMPARISON
BETWEEN SPANISH AND OTHER ROMANCE LANGUAGES:
Spanish is not mutually intelligible with French or Romanian, but it is
to some degree with Italian. Although the Italian phonological system
is very similar to that of Spanish, they vary greatly in grammar vocabulary
and morphology and can usually be better understood if one is already
familiar with the other language. Written Portuguese is very similar to
Spanish, however, the pronuntiation is so different that Spanish speakers
have difficulties to understand Portuguese.
