Influences On The Spanish Language - Words of Non-Latin Origin

Words of Non-Latin Origin

Some authors estimate that seventy-five percent of Spanish words have come from Latin and were in use in Spain before the Common Era. The remaining 25 percent come from other languages. Of these languages (and language families), the four which have contributed the most words are Arabic, Indigenous languages of the Americas, Germanic, and Celtic in roughly that order.

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Famous quotes containing the words words and/or origin:

    “One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
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