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2026-01-08 18:08:06 UTC

Yoïn van Spijk on Nostr: The Spanish word ‘palabra’ and Portuguese ‘palavra’, meaning “word”, have ...

The Spanish word ‘palabra’ and Portuguese ‘palavra’, meaning “word”, have the same origin as French ‘parole’ and Italian ‘parola’.

However, there’s a big difference: the R and L are swapped.

Swapping two sounds is a linguistic change called metathesis.

Zoom in on my infographic to see more examples of metathesis in five Romance languages.