Comparison of Portuguese and Spanish

Portuguese and Spanish, although closely related Romance languages, differ in many aspects of their phonology, grammar and lexicon. Both belong to a subset of the Romance languages known as West Iberian Romance, which also includes several other languages or dialects with fewer speakers, all of which are mutually intelligible to some degree. A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin): In the case of Spanish it was 20%, the third closest Romance language to Latin, only behind Sardinian (8% distance) and Italian

Comparison of Portuguese and Spanish

Portuguese and Spanish, although closely related Romance languages, differ in many aspects of their phonology, grammar and lexicon. Both belong to a subset of the Romance languages known as West Iberian Romance, which also includes several other languages or dialects with fewer speakers, all of which are mutually intelligible to some degree. A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin): In the case of Spanish it was 20%, the third closest Romance language to Latin, only behind Sardinian (8% distance) and Italian