French roots of Espanol

Question

Why so many words of spanish are similar to french ones?

I saw the opinion "these accents are in spanish from french" but could not find more information. Wikipedia does not help me. Maybe you could?

If you wish, you can unaccept my answer and select lazarus's. I think his was more helpful to you. It will not offend me at all. - webdunce, May 8, 2011

Thank you for suggestion but once I said thank you I will not take my word back :)) - libresco, May 8, 2011

Answer 1

Both Spanish and French have developed from Latin. In fact, several languages are merely modern versions of Latin: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian are the more well-known ones...and they all sound very similar.

In fact, I can read and understand a little Portuguese (very little) simply because I have studied Spanish.

Actually, I personally consider French to be the most different-sounding of them all. (And Portuguese—to me, at least—sounds like the result of putting French, Spanish, and Russian in a blender).

So you say that not one came to another but they both had been developing near from latin roots so they have the same words and accents above letters coincidentially? - libresco, May 8, 2011

Answer 2

So you say that not one came to another but they both had been developing near from latin roots so they have the same words and accents above letters coincidentially?

They have not developed from Latin roots; both used to be Latin, but they evolved differently. The words rarely look the same, although many of them obviously look similar. The accents, however, is another story, because each language incorporated them for different purposes. French has 14 vowel sounds and only 5 letters, so they need to use chunks of letters and add accents to be able to represent all the sounds with just 5 symbols, while Spanish has 5 vowel sounds that perfectly match the 5 letters. The stress in French words is (practically) always at the end of the word, but Spanish words, like in English, can have the stress in any syllable, so Spanish uses the acute accent to indicate which syllable is stressed. The probability that a French word and a Spanish word look identical, including the accent, is tiny, and it would be a mere coincidence.

Thank you for a clear explanation! Now everything in my head is on its own place :) - libresco, May 8, 2011

Answer 3

The accent marks in French are different than in Spanish and serve a different purpose. In fact, the only ones that even look similar are é and ü.

The vowels and consonants in English, Spanish, and French also look similar, but are often pronounced quite differently. The similarity has a historial basis, but not a whole lot to do with how the languages are spoken today.

Answer 4

well the french went to new mexcio