Interphonological rules

Knowing Romance languages phonetic and orthographic rules entails plurilingual reading comprehension[1]

How to improve vocabulary learning: Your learning outcome is much better when you compare words with a same meaning (adequacy of meaning) in different languages, i.e. their shapes, meanings, grammatical properties, and use.

Rules

The most important phonetic and orthographic rules exclusively concern the hereditary words.

A) Speaking of vowels[2]

1. Distinguish between bright and dark vowels: Bright vowels are i and e, dark ones a, o, u. Bright and dark vowels rarely change the group.

2. The Latin difference between long and short vowels does not exist in Romance languages.

3. Stressed syllables are more stable than unstressed ones.

4. At the beginning of a word, vowels (and consonants) are comparatively stable: fourmi, formica, hormiga < *FORMIX, FORMICA; they change rarely, sometimes they change slightly. (see B1)

5. Distinguish between open and closed syllables. An open syllable ends with a vowel: MA-RIS, PA-TREM, a closed one with a consonant: MAN-DUCARE; DAM-NATIO.

6. Latin A in open syllables > fr. -e-: TA-LEM > fr. tel ≠ it. tale/sp. tal, MA-RE > fr. mer ≠ it. mare/sp. mar.

7. Stressed and/or long vowels in Latin tend to change:

a) Ē, Ī > /ei/oi/ie/e/i/ : DĒBET > fr. doit ≠ it. devve; DĪG(I)TUS > fr. doigt, sp. dedo, it. ditto ; D(I)RĒCTUS > fr. droit ≠ it. dritto ; PĒDE(M) > fr. pied, it. piede ; FĒRIA (vacances, foire) > pt. feira, fr. foire, pt. férias (vacances), sp. feria (Messe), it. fera, an. fair.

b) Ō > /eu/ue/uo/õ/ : NŌVU(M > fr. neuf, sp. nuevo, it. nuovo; BONU(M), fr. bon, sp. bueno, it. buono, pt. bom ; BŌVIS > bœuf, sp. buey, it. bue.

c) U > /ou/o/u/ : URSU(M) : sp. oso, fr. ours, it. orso, pt. urso.

d) AU > /o/ : AURU(M) ≠ sp. oro, fr. or, it. oro.

8. Double vowels (diphthongs) often arise in French, Portuguese and Spanish in the following cases:

a) by excluding intervocalic consonants: CADĒRE > fr. choir, pt. cair, sp. caer (to fall); CLAUDĒRE > fr. clore ≠ en. close, it. chiudere; PLACĒRE > fr. plaire ≠ en. to please, it. piacere, pt. aprazer, sp. placer (see B5); NOCĒRE > fr. nuire ≠ it. nuocere (to harm).

b) by changing of -CT- > -i+t-: LAC-TE(M) > fr. lait [l, pt. leite ≠ it. latte, sp. leche ;. D(I)RĒCTUS ) > fr. droit via a.fr. dreit, pt. direito ≠ it. dritto, sp. derecho.

c) by changing stressed syllables: lat. VĪTA > afr. > [viða] > fr. vie (silencing). Or: FĒRIA (holidays, fair) > feire, fr. foire, pt. férias (holidays), sp. feria, it. fera, en. fair.

9. Portuguese, Spanish and Italian largely maintain Latin forms or modify them only slightly.

10. Even the German ‘educational vocabulary’, as far as it goes back to written Latin or ancient Greek, does not change vowel quality: PRAEDICARE > dt. predigen, sp. predicar, it. predicare, fr. prédication, prêcher, to preach.

B) Speaking of consonants

1. At the beginning of words, consonants are stable, with a few exceptions.

a) In French C- > ch-: CABALLU(M) > cheval; CAT(TUM) > chat [ʃa]≠ it. gatto, sp. gato, en. cat, ge. Katze; CANE > chien ≠ it. cane; CA-PUT/CA-P(I)-TI > fr. chef, en. chief, pt. chefe, sp. jefe < fr. chef (de cuisine). Generally, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian do not innovate: sp. cabo, it. capo, en. cape, ge. Kap, fr. cap; fr. chiffre, it./pt./sp. cifra < mlat. CIFRA < ar. SIFR (zero).

b) Exclusively in Italian: B-, C-, F-, G-, P-plus-L > bi, ci/chi, fi, pi- gi/ghi: frankish BLANK > bianco, lat. CLAMARE > chiamare, FLORE(M) > fiore, PLACĒĒRE > piacere, vlat. GLACIA > ghiaccio.

c) In Spanish and Portuguese: initial CL- > sp. ll [j] llave, llamar > pt. ch– [ʒ] or [ʃ] chave, chamar.

2. In spoken Latin, the initial h- already was mute when the city of Pompei was hit by the Vesuvio eruption in 78. It does not appear in Italian either: it. abitudine, osteria, erede, esitare ≠ fr. habitude, heritier, hésiter; ≠ sp. habitud, heredero, hesitar. The maintenance of the initial h- in other Romance languages is due to etymological writing.

3. In Spanish, the initial /f/ turns to h- hacemos, faisons; hormiga, fr. fourmi; horno, fr. four, it. forno; it. [ʒ] in gelato > sp. helado ≠ fr. jamais, sp. jamás.

4. Sometimes, intervocalic consonants undergo striking changes from classical Latin to French, which often lead to their entire disappearance. Often sonorization (lenition) phenomena precede: VĪTA(M) > *[viða] > fr. vie; fr. plaire < PLACĒRE, plaît ≠ piace, pt. apraz < PLĀCET ≠ plaisons, piacciamo, aprazemos < PLACĒMUS.

5. In general, Romance languages show varying degrees of sonorization: AQUA > eau via afr. aigue, see sp. agua; PLACĒRE > fr. plaire via afr. plaisir, pt. prazer, sp. placer, it. piacere, also en. please/pleasant; TACĒRE > fr. taire ≠ sp. tacer, sp. tacēre. Or -T- and -D- > -s-/-z-: RATIONEM > it. ragione, pt. razo, sp. razon, fr. raison, en. reason; VĀDO > fr. [vɛ] vaisK, sp. voy ≠ it. vado.

6. New consonants (simple letters, digraphs): -ch- for [ʃ] in fr. cher, trigraphs: ge. -sch- for [ʃ] in schön) often appear after weak vowels’ exclusion: lat. MAND(U)CARE > fr. *mantger > manger, it. mangiare; PRAED(I)CARE > *pred(i)cer > fr. prêcher, en preach.

7. Once again: Instability leads to sonorization in the case of double consonant groups: COLUBRA > couleuvre, sp. culebra (de cristal) (blind worm); brit.en. better [bɛtə] ≠ am.en. [bɛdə], Italy [‘itəli] ≠ [‘idəli]. Sometimes, consonants disappear entirely: CATH(E)DRA > chaire, INTĒGRA > entier [ɑ̃tje], entière [ɑ̃tjer], entièrement [ɑ̃tjermɑ̃] ≠ sp. entero, pt. inteiro.

8. It happens that sounds and letters swap within series (metathesis): FORMAT(I)CUM > fromage ≠ formaggio; Parfümerie, profumeria, en. perfumery; en./fr. crocodile, ge. Krokodil ≠ sp. cocodrilo; it. profilo ≠ pt./sp. perfil.

F.-J. Meissner