"four" in seven languages
Meaningfour
Spanish
cuatro
/ˈkwatɾo/
inherited
French
quatre
/katʁ/
inherited
Italian
quattro
/ˈkwattro/
inherited
Portuguese
quatro
/ˈkwatɾu/
inherited
Romanian
patru
/ˈpatru/
inherited
Romanian turned QU- before a into p: QUATTUOR → patru, as AQUAM → apă.
Catalan
quatre
/ˈkwatɾə/
inherited
English
four
/fɔɹ/
Indo-European kin · PIE *kʷetwóres
English → ItalianfourquattroDistant cognateRelated only through Indo-European, thousands of years back (night ~ noche). But English has relatives: quartet, quarter, square (QUARTUS 'fourth').What English and Italian share
The Latin ancestor
QUATTUOR‘four’
All six sisters descend from it, unless marked otherwise below.
The story
Spoken Latin squeezed QUATTUOR to *quattro. French writes qu but lost the w sound: [katʁ].
English relatives: quartet, quarter, square (QUARTUS 'fourth')