The romance languages

the long version

"How do the Romance languages reflect the temperament of the peoples who speak them? On what basis can it be asserted that they descend from a common mother tongue? What historical and geographical factors molded their different structures and phonetic qualities? These are a few of the vital questions explored in this comprehensive linguistic study of the five major Romance languages - French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Rumanian. Using a unique comparative approach, Rebecca Posner analyzes the historical development, internal structure, and present-day variants and dialects of each language, bringing into relief both he similarities and the differences in the famous constellation of Latin tongues."--Back cover.