Portuguese And Spanish: The Hispanic Siblings

It is fun to learn a new language apart from your native language, that’s when Romance languages get their names called. Romance languages are particularly the languages that are found in the European nations of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Romania. They are known for having roman letters used in their languages, hence they are the romance languages. 

Understanding their origins:

A question would pop out, “Why isn’t English or German considered a romance language?” To obtain the title of being a romance language, the language should contain numerous words borrowed from Latin and evolved from Vulgar Latin directly (Latin was a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome). English on the other hand evolved from these romance languages along with the Germanic vocabulary and dialects. 

Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French belong to one branch of the vulgar Latin Continental romance languages known as the Italo-Western languages with Romanian being the Eastern language.

Thereafter, Portuguese, Spanish and French being the further Western and Italian being the prototype language for these three. Under that, two branches where French is referred to as a Gallo-Romance language and Spanish and Portuguese are Ibero – Romance (Ibero-Hispanic) languages since these countries are located on the Iberian Peninsula.

The Ibero-Romance or Hispanic siblings

History books tell us about the rat race of the European countries colonizing various parts of the world which is why their languages spread throughout the world immensely while some of their vocabulary sank into the native languages of those foreign lands. Thanks to the Portuguese who developed their technology to set sail, trading with other places in the world and the sharing of their ideas and of Portugal’s neighbouring countries of Spain, France and England was made possible thus leading to the spreading of their languages through colonization. Currently Spanish, Portuguese and French are the widespread romance languages. 

But how similar are they? And what makes them different in some ways?

We do know that vocabulary will be the same in a few kilometres, while there will be a change in dialect further on from the original place. Further on, some of the vocabulary will differ and entirely you’ll find the dialect is highly differentiated. That theory does apply to these languages which in turn developed from Latin. When we talk about the Hispanic languages, their basic vocabulary and phrases can most of the times resemble but their spellings differ at times. 

For example, in English we would say, “Hello! Everything’s fine?”, in the Hispanic languages they say, 

• Portuguese: Olá! Tudo bem?

• Spanish: ¡Hola! Todo bien?

Notice that they sound quite similar but are written differently.

*Another example, English: “it is a big house.”

• Port.: é uma casa grande.

• Spanish: es una casa grande.

Notice that “is” is translated to “é” and “es”, “a” becomes “uma” and “una”, but “big house” is “casa grande” for both. Also, we do understand that some of the English vocabulary can be seen in these languages written differently. “Grande” means big, and a synonym for the same is grand. Moreover, if anything has to clash in these languages that strive to be different, then their accents as to how you pronounce their languages have to vary.

Like for example “casa grande” will be pronounced as 

• Port.: kaa-saa grand-e   or gran-d (with the last vowel “e” pronounced silently or abruptly emphasised)

• Spanish: kaa-saa grand-ay

 You’ll find that Spanish has an accent that stresses less on the last vowels like the letter “e” sounding like an “ay” as pronounced in “prey” while in Portuguese it is pronounced either with an “e” or like in the word “same” with no pronunciation.  Then what are the differences?

 What makes them an understandable language to learn?

There are certain words in English that are a bit similar in spelling with many letters in common in those particular words. If you are familiar with the English language then deciphering some Hispanic phrases can come in handy while learning.

Exemplo:

Portuguese.: Ele é um estudante brilhante!

Spanish: Él es un estudiante brillante!

So let’s translate word-to-word in English. 

• The words “Ele é um” and “él es un” means he is as we had learned in the previous examples.

• The words “estudante” and “estudiante” look like the word student.

• The words “brilhante” and “brilliante” look like the word brilliant.

• When we join them together, it translates as He is a student brilliant. But it does not sound correct in English if translated word-to-word. That’s because their rules are such that you say/write the noun first, then comes the adjective. It is the vice versa of English in which you would say he is a brilliant student.

Which one should you choose if you wish to learn?

Both languages sound beautiful and romantic. But don’t forget the origin of the word ‘romance’ which simply meant the Romans. Just kidding! (it can be used interchangeably) Spain and Portugal do share many similarities and differences despite having a common border.

A typical Portuguese or Spanish gets annoyed if a foreigner mistakes Spain for Portugal and vice versa (this is a tip you should keep in mind if ever you were to mix with their crowd if you visit). Nevertheless, they are great nations with rich cultures and beautiful places. The languages sound great as per how you like, some prefer Spanish to sound better while some like Portuguese and some like both. It is all up to you, how you perceive these languages.

They have their advantages and disadvantages. You may like Spanish for their less stressed ending syllables, or like Portuguese for their well-structured complex grammar over Spanish. You may like the idea of silent letters which Spanish has derived from the French language. Or maybe by influence, or for business communication depending on which country has better wealth earning and standard of living. Or maybe you like to stalk the men or women (particularly called Latinos and Latinas) of those places. Numerous other reasons can make up for your choice of learning the language.

Written by: Kirsten Kenneth