Spanish and Galician both grew out of Latin, and they changed it in different directions. Because the changes were regular, a Spanish word often tells you its Galician twin, if you know which patterns to apply. Seven of them do most of the work.
1. ie and ue become e and o
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| tiempo | tempo | time |
| puerta | porta | door |
| siempre | sempre | always |
| nuevo | novo | new |
| escuela | escola | school |
| fuerte | forte | strong |
Spanish split certain Latin vowels into ie and ue. Galician didn’t. It’s the most common of the seven.
2. j and soft g become x
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| gente | xente | people |
| jueves | xoves | Thursday |
| página | páxina | page |
| viaje | viaxe | trip |
| jefe | xefe | boss |
Galician has no jota sound. Its x is said like the sh in English ship, so xente sounds like “SHEN-te”. (Jueves to xoves also uses pattern 1.)
3. Some j become ll instead
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| mujer | muller | woman |
| ojo | ollo | eye |
| oreja | orella | ear |
| trabajo | traballo | work |
This is the catch in pattern 2. A smaller, older group of words went to ll, and nothing in the Spanish spelling tells you which group a word belongs to. When in doubt, look it up.
4. ll- at the start of a word becomes ch-
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| llave | chave | key |
| llegar | chegar | to arrive |
| llamar | chamar | to call |
| llorar | chorar | to cry |
| lluvia | choiva | rain |
These words started with cl-, pl- or fl- in Latin. Where a Spanish ll- came from a plain Latin l-, Galician kept the l: llevar is levar, not chevar.
5. h- at the start of a word becomes f-
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| hablar | falar | to speak |
| hambre | fame | hunger |
| hoja | folla | leaf |
| hierro | ferro | iron |
| hijo | fillo | son |
Spanish lost an initial Latin f and writes a silent h where it was. Galician kept the f. But only some Spanish h were once an f: hoy is hoxe, hombre is home, huevo is ovo, and hora is hora. (Hijo to fillo uses pattern 3 as well.)
6. -dad becomes -dade
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| ciudad | cidade | city |
| verdad | verdade | truth |
| universidad | universidade | university |
| dificultad | dificultade | difficulty |
| voluntad | vontade | will |
Galician keeps a final e that Spanish dropped. Where Spanish has -tad, Galician usually has -tade.
7. -ero becomes -eiro
| Español | Galego | |
|---|---|---|
| dinero | diñeiro | money |
| primero | primeiro | first |
| compañero | compañeiro | companion |
| escalera | escaleira | stairs |
| cafetera | cafeteira | coffee pot |
The feminine -era becomes -eira the same way.
Two cautions
- Learned words skip the patterns. Words that came into both languages from written Latin, long after the sound changes, often look the same in both: rectángulo is just rectángulo.
- Some words use two patterns at once, like hijo → fillo and jueves → xoves. Apply one and you may still need the other.
Every word, in one place
The patterns get you most of the way, and the dictionary settles the rest. Verba’s Sound Changes screen, in the Study tab, shows each pattern with every word in the dictionary that follows it, so you can see how far each one reaches.
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