Sound laws · Law 31 · Clusters
Romanian turns velars into labials
CT, X [ks], GN, QU and GU (before A)
Spanish
ch, j, ñ; cu, gu (velar kept or palatalized)
French
it, iss, gn; qu (velar kept, palatalized or lost)
Italian
tt, ss, gn; qu, gu (assimilated or kept)
Portuguese
it, x [ʃ], nh; qu, gu
Romanian
pt, ps, mn; p, b (labial)
Catalan
it/t, ix [ʃ], ny; qu, gu
What happened
Where the western sisters weakened a velar k or g before another consonant into a palatal glide (see ct, nn-gn), Romanian moved it to the lips: CT → pt (noapte, lapte), X [ks] → ps (coapsă), GN → mn (lemn, pumn). The labial element of QU and GU before a won out the same way, giving p and b: AQUAM → apă, QUATTUOR → patru, LINGUAM → limbă. No other standard sister did this, so these clusters are among the quickest ways to recognise an inherited Romanian word.
Examples
| Latin | Italian | Spanish | French | Portuguese | Romanian | Catalan | English relative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OCTŌ‘eight’ | otto | ocho | huit | oito | opt | vuit | octave |
| LACTEM (classical LAC)‘milk’ | latte | leche | lait | leite | lapte | llet | lactose |
| COXAM‘hip → thigh’ | coscia | — | cuisse | coxa | coapsă | cuixa | |
| LIGNUM‘wood (ca llenya 'firewood', from the plural LIGNA)’ | legno | leño | — | lenho | lemn | llenya | |
| COGNĀTUM‘kinsman → brother-in-law’ | cognato | cuñado | — | cunhado | cumnat | cunyat | |
| AQUAM‘water’ | acqua | agua | eau | água | apă | aigua | aquatic |
| QUATTUOR (VL *QUATTRO)‘four’ | quattro | cuatro | quatre | quatro | patru | quatre | quarter |
| LINGUAM‘tongue, language’ | lingua | lengua | langue | língua | limbă | llengua | linguist |
Decoder
Romanian pt, ps, mn? Swap in the western clusters: noapte, opt → noche, notte, noite; lemn, pumn → legno, pugno, puño. Romanian p- or -p- where the sisters have qu, gu: apă → acqua, agua; patru → quattro.
Exceptions
Before e and i, QU gave Romanian c [tʃ] instead (QUID → ce, QUINQUE → cinci). Learned and modern words keep the Latin clusters (act, lecție, taxă, magnific), so Romanian pt, ps, mn mark the old, inherited layer.