Was there a transitional language before Goths became Spaniards?

Question

All languages are developmental; yet did Spanish result directly from Latin, or a different language spoken by the Goths?

Answer 1

Visigothic

Spain was controlled by the Visigoths between the 5th and 8th century. However, the linguistic influence of the Visigothic language (an East Germanic language) on Spanish was relatively limited, because the invaders were already Romanized and also spoke their own dialect of Latin. Besides a few military words, Spanish borrowed the following from Visigothic:

• A new noun declension (nominative -â, oblique -âne), which was used mostly with proper names (whence modern Spanish Froilán and also guardián).
• The originally adjectivizing suffix -engo (Germanic -ing), as in abolengo ('ancestry, inheritance' — cf. abuelo 'grandfather') and camarlengo 'camerlengo (a church official)'.
• The origin of the surname suffixes in -z (as in Díaz, Pérez, López, Ruiz, Muñoz, etc.) is controversial. Lapesa[1] attributes it "perhaps" to Ligurian, reinforced by "numerous Latinized Gothic genitives in -rici". Menéndez Pidal[2] considers it "doubtlessly" of Iberian origin. And Alvar and Pottier link it simply with the [Latin] genitive in -ici.

Then Spanish is a vulgarized form of Latin with Gothic and Arab influences? - kmaakheru, Dec 17, 2011

I wouldn't say those are the only influences, but basically yes. It was also influenced by the laguages being spoken by the people there before the Roman, Goth, Arab invasions. Rather than languages enitrely replacing one another they tend to absorb - 0074b507, Dec 17, 2011

each other. - 0074b507, Dec 17, 2011

Appreciations! - kmaakheru, Dec 18, 2011