"five" in seven languages
Meaningfive
Spanish
cinco
/ˈθinko/
inherited
French
cinq
/sɛ̃k/
inherited
Italian
cinque
/ˈtʃinkwe/
inherited
Portuguese
cinco
/ˈsĩku/
inherited
Romanian
cinci
/tʃintʃʲ/
inherited
Catalan
cinc
/siŋ/
inherited
English
five
/faɪv/
Indo-European kin · PIE *pénkʷe
English → ItalianfivecinqueDistant cognateRelated only through Indo-European, thousands of years back (night ~ noche). But English has relatives: quintet, quintuplets.What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
QUĪNQUE (spoken *CINQUE)‘five’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
Spoken Latin dissimilated the first QU- of QUĪNQUE to c-, and that c before i then softened: θ, s, tʃ.
English relatives: quintet, quintuplets