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Sound laws · Law 19 · Clusters

NN, GN and N + yod

NN, GN, NI/NE + vowel

Spanish

ñ [ɲ]

French

gn [ɲ]; NN → n (nasal vowel at the end)

Italian

nn kept; GN, NI → gn [ɲɲ]

Portuguese

nh [ɲ]; NN → n

Romanian

NI → i (vie); GN → mn (pumn); NN → n (an)

Catalan

ny [ɲ], also from NN (any)

What happened

N followed by a yod, and the cluster GN, both became the palatal nasal [ɲ] (the tongue body pressed against the palate) in the western sisters and Italian, written ñ in Spanish, gn in French and Italian, nh in Portuguese and ny in Catalan. Spanish and Catalan also palatalized double NN, a change the others did not share: Italian kept nn, French and Portuguese reduced it to n. Romanian went its own way: NI lost the n (vie), and GN became mn (see velar-to-labial).

Examples

LatinItalianSpanishFrenchPortugueseRomanianCatalanEnglish relative
ANNUM‘year’annoañoananoananyannual
VĪNEAM‘vineyard’vignaviñavignevinhavievinyavine
PUGNUM‘fist’pugnopuñopoingpunhopumnpuny
SENIŌREM‘older → lord’signoreseñorseigneursenhor—senyorsenior
CASTANEAM‘chestnut’castagnacastañachâtaignecastanha—castanya
*MONTĀNEAM‘mountain’montagnamontañamontagnemontanha—muntanyamountain

Decoder

Spanish ñ = Portuguese nh = Catalan ny = French and Italian gn when the source is n + i or gn (señor, senhor, senyor, seigneur, signore), but Italian nn and French and Portuguese n when it is Latin NN (año, any → anno, an, ano).

Exceptions

At the end of a French word ɲ dissolved into a nasal vowel (poing). Learned words keep a plain n: Spanish anual beside año, French annuel, Italian annuale. Catalan any shows the NN → ny shared with Spanish año, so Catalan ny can stand for Italian nn.

Watch it happen: ANNUM

In your word bank