https://www.reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/3tzely/why_are_spanish_and_italian_so_similar/
Why are Spanish and Italian so similar? (self.asklinguistics)

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[–]macroclimate 7 points 7 months ago

Because they evolved from the same ancestral language (some form of Latin). The same goes for all Romance languages; French, Portuguese, the numerous other Romance languages spoken by minority groups throughout Western Europe, and to a lesser extent even Romanian.

Many of Western Europe's Romance languages are quite closely related, and as such are mutually intelligible to some degree.

[–]Cosmic__Ocean 5 points 7 months ago

Spanish and Italian are so similar because they are closely related. Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian, and several others all descended from the spoken varieties of Latin, hence the "Roman" in "Roman(ce) languages".

Here's a handy Indo-European family tree to help you visualize the relationships.



[–]Spitalian 3 points 7 months ago

Spanish is actually more closely related to French than to Italian, which you may find surprising. The reason Spanish and Italian are so similar is because they are both fairly conservative, which means they have not changed a ton since they split, at least compared to languages like French.


[–]ASunCame 1 point 7 months ago

    Spanish is actually more closely related to French than to Italian

By what metric?

[–]Spitalian 3 points 7 months ago

Take a look at the family tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages#Classification_and_related_languages

Spanish and French are both Western Romance. Italian branched off earlier.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/IndoEuropeanTreeDielli1.svg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages#Classification_and_related_languages