Spanish evolved from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. That’s why linguists classify Spanish in the family of Romance languages (the word “Romance” comes from a Latin term meaning “Roman”).
Around three-quarters (75%) of Spanish vocabulary words come from Latin, but many have slightly changed in spelling and pronunciation. For example, the Spanish word “amigo” (meaning “friend”) differs a bit from the original Latin term, “amicus”.
Alongside its Latin-derived vocabulary, Spanish has vocabulary terms from other languages as well, including Arabic and Basque (due to historical reasons that we will explain).
Latin grammar is considered more difficult than Spanish grammar because, in Latin, word endings change to reflect grammatical cases.
For example, the Latin word for king is “rex” when it’s the subject of the sentence, but it becomes “regem” when it’s the object (the recipient of the action). In Spanish, this word stays the same; in both cases, it’s spelled “rey”.
The Iberian Peninsula (the region that is now Spain and Portugal) had local languages before the Romans brought Latin.
Celtiberian was one of these local languages; as one can tell by its name, it was a Celtic language. Basque is another language from the region; it is a linguistic isolate, meaning that it is unrelated to any other known language.
Basque, Celtiberian, and the other local languages influenced the Latin that spread to the Iberian Peninsula. For instance, the Spanish word “camino” (which means “path”) has Celtic origins.
Here are some examples of Spanish vocabulary words that come from Basque:
| Spanish | Basque | English |
|---|---|---|
| izquierda | ezker | left |
| mochila | motxil | backpack |
| chatarra | txatarra | scrap |
| cencerro | zintzarri | cowbell |
The Spanish language has been significantly influenced by Arabic; this is not the case for Classical Latin.
The Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Moors (who spoke Arabic) for many years starting from the 8th century. This led to the inclusion of Arabic words in the Spanish language.
Ancient Rome was in contact with North Africa, with Ancient Carthage in particular —the civilization against whom the Romans fought the Punic wars. Arabic had not yet spread to North Africa, and Ancient Carthage spoke Punic (a language related to Phoenician).
In the table below are some examples of Spanish vocabulary words that come from Arabic.
| English | Latin | Spanish |
|---|---|---|
| oil | oleum | aceite |
| carrot | carota | zanahoria |
| blue | caeruleus | azul |
| rice | oryza | arroz |
| basil | ocimum | albahaca |
There are many similar vocabulary words between Latin and Spanish.
| English | Latin | Spanish |
|---|---|---|
| moon | luna | luna |
| water | aqua | agua |
| sea | mare | mar |
| love | amor | amor |
| table | mensa | mesa |
| peace | pax | paz |
| tree | arbor | árbol |
| alone | solus | solo |
| book | liber | libro |
| hand | manus | mano |
| friend | amicus | amigo |
| sun | solis | sol |
| warm | calidus | cálido |
| truth | veritas | verdad |
| father | pater | padre |
| mother | mater | madre |
| easy | facilis | fácil |
| cold | frigidus | frío |
| green | viridis | verde |
| wise | sapiens | sabio |
| fish | piscis | pescado |
To discover additional vocabulary, consider referring to the following compilations of frequently used terms:
A key difference between Latin and Spanish pronunciation is that the letter ‘v’ is often pronounced like a ‘b’ in Spanish - this is not the case in Latin.
In linguistics, this phenomenon is called “betacism”.
There is a famous medieval Latin saying which is a pun on this:
“Beati hispani, quibus vivere bibere est” (the English translation is “Fortunate are the Spaniards, for whom living is drinking”)
Since the Spanish often pronounce the letter ‘v’ like a ‘b’, the result is that the words “vivere” ("to live") and “bibere” ("to drink") sound alike in Spanish.
Latin distinguishes between short and long vowels, and changing the length of a vowel can lead to a different word. In linguistics terminology, this means that Latin has phonemic vowel length.
For example, in Latin, “liber” when pronounced with a short ‘i’ means “book”; and when pronounced with a long ‘i’ it means “free”.
Some Latin textbooks, as a learning aid, will use a short horizontal bar above the letter to indicate a long vowel: “liber” (book) vs. “līber” (free).
Spanish differs from Latin with respect to vowel length. In Spanish, there are typically only short vowels, and even when they are a bit lengthened in stressed syllables there is no risk of changing the meaning of the word - vowel length is not phonemic in Spanish.
The Latin proverb “lupus non mordet lupum” means “a wolf does not bite another wolf”.
In the Latin version, every single word of the sentence is spelled differently.
That’s because Latin nouns change their endings to indicate their grammatical function in a sentence. The Latin word for “wolf” is “lupus”; that’s its form as the subject of a sentence. But when it is the direct object, it takes the form “lupum”.
These grammatical cases in Latin make it a more difficult language to learn than Spanish.
The Latin saying “Audentes fortuna iuvat” (“Fortune favors the bold”) becomes “La fortuna favorece a los audaces” in Spanish.
The Spanish version of this sentence contains twice as many words as the Latin version.
That’s mainly because Latin doesn’t use grammatical articles, whereas Spanish does. Grammatical articles, by the way, correspond to the words “the”, “a”, and “an” in English.
The Latin sentence “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”) and the Spanish sentence “Te amo” (“I love you”) seem to have nothing in common. The first is a statement by 17th-century philosopher René Descartes; the second is a declaration of love in Spanish.
These sentences do, however, have something in common: neither of them contains a subject pronoun.
In Spanish and Latin, leaving out the subject pronoun can be grammatically correct because the context (the verb endings, in particular) makes the missing pronoun easy to figure out.
In Linguistics, Spanish and Latin are called null-subject languages —languages where subject pronouns can be left out. English, in contrast, is not one of these: we even use “dummy pronouns,” which refer to nothing in particular, so that sentences like “It is raining” can have a subject.
It is estimated that approximately 75% of the Spanish language's vocabulary has its origins in Latin. However, despite this strong connection to Latin, there are noticeable differences in the spelling of some words between the two languages.
For instance, while the letter 'z' is rare in Latin vocabulary, it is often used in Spanish spelling. Additionally, it is intriguing to note that many Spanish words, which derive from Latin words ending in 'x', have undergone a transformation by replacing the 'x' with 'z'.
| Spanish | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| luz | lux | light |
| feliz | felix | happy |
| voz | vox | voice |
| paz | pax | peace |
| audaz | audax | bold |
| capaz | capax | capable |
| eficaz | efficax | effective |
| cruz | crux | cross |
In other cases, the final ‘x’ in the original Latin word is changed to other letters in the derived Spanish word:
| Spanish | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| ley | lex | law |
| rey | rex | king |
| noche | nox | night |
Latin spelling differs from Spanish spelling through another pattern: it is frequent for nouns that end in ‘-tas’ in Latin to end in ‘-tad’ in Spanish. Here are some examples of this:
| Spanish | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| tranquilidad | tranquillitas | tranquility |
| libertad | libertas | freedom |
| curiosidad | curiositas | curiosity |
| variedad | varietas | variety |
| sanidad | sanitas | health |
| humanidad | humanitas | humanity |
| sociedad | societas | society |
| dificultad | difficultas | difficulty |
| dignidad | dignitas | dignity |
| seguridad | securitas | security |
| unidad | unitas | unity |
Spanish words derived from Latin terms ending in ‘-tio’ have a slightly different spelling: the ‘-tio’ ending in Latin is generally replaced by ‘-ción’ in Spanish.
| Spanish | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| comparación | comparatio | comparison |
| excepción | exceptio | exception |
| significación | significatio | significance |
| descripción | descriptio | description |
| admiración | admiratio | admiration |
| dirección | directio | direction |
| ecuación | aequatio | équation |
Another spelling difference between Latin and Spanish concerns Latin words starting with the letter ‘s’ followed by a consonant. When these words are incorporated into Spanish, it is common for the letter ‘e’ to be added at the beginning.
| Spanish | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| estrellas | stellae | stars |
| escuela | schola | school |
| esperar | spes | hope |
| espíritu | spiritus | spirit |
| escribe | scribere | write |
| estudiar | studere | study |
Spanish words which are derived from Latin words ending in ‘-lis’ typically lose the final ‘-is’. Here are some examples:
| Spanish | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| sol | solis | sun |
| fidel | fidelis | faithful |
| fácil | facilis | easy |
| débil | debilis | weak |
| útil | utilis | useful |
| piel | pellis | skin |
A noticeable difference between Latin spelling and Spanish spelling concerns the frequent simplification of double consonants to single consonants.
Double consonants do exist in Spanish, for example:
As a general rule, these four consonants are the only consonants that can appear doubled in Spanish spelling. (There are a few exceptions, such as in the loanwords “jazz” and “pizza”)
A way to remember these four consonants is that they are the consonants found in the name Caroline.
Latin-derived Spanish words have a different spelling from the original Latin term because of this frequent removal of the double consonants. Here are some examples of this:
| Latin | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Words that are spelled with 'ff' in Latin vs. single 'f' in Spanish: | ||
| difficilis | difícil | difficult |
| offensio | ofensa | offense |
| differo | diferente | different |
| offero | oferta | offer |
| officialis | oficial | official |
| effectus | efecto | effect |
| Words that are spelled with 'pp' in Latin vs. single 'p' in Spanish: | ||
| opportunitas | oportunidad | opportunity |
| approbare | aprobar | approve |
| appropriare | apropiado | appropriate |
| Words that are spelled with 'mm' in Latin vs. single 'm' in Spanish | ||
| communis | común | common |
| accommodo | acomodar | accommodate |
| consummatio | consumo | consumption |
| Words that are spelled with 'cc' in Latin vs. single 'c' in Spanish | ||
| acceptus | aceptable | acceptable |
| accuso | acusar | accuse |
| occupo | ocupar | occupy |
| successio | sucesión | succession |
| peccatum | pecado | sin |
| Words that are spelled with 'ss' in Latin vs. single 's' in Spanish | ||
| possessio | posesión | possession |
| necessarius | necesario | necessary |
| dissimulo | disimular | disguise |
| excessum | exceso | excess |
This comparison of Latin and Spanish shows that although there are many spelling and grammatical differences between Latin and Spanish, these two languages are closely related in terms of their vocabulary.
In terms of pronunciation - and particularly in terms of grammar - there are more significant differences between Latin and Spanish.
Despite these differences, Spanish is one of the closest languages to Latin. Italian is also very similar to Latin, but French is a bit less similar to Latin because of Gallic and Frankish influences.
This proximity to Latin is one of the factors that makes Spanish one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. There are many English words derived from Latin, and often these are similar to the corresponding Spanish words.