(I) call

This next bit is going to be a little confusing at first. Don't worry. It all comes together by the end of the lesson.

The first question you may be asking yourself is why "I call" is so important. Here's why. In the Romance languages, they don't say "My name is..." They say, "I am called..." or, more literally, "I call myself..." The good news here is that the verbs for "call," like the verbs for "speak," are regular verbs from the Latin -are family.

When you call out to someone really loud, you may make a clamor. Clamo is Latin for "I call." Here's what the Italians and Spanish did to it:

Lat. clamo becomes It. chiamo (kyah-mo) - the "l" sound becomes a "y".

Spanish takes it one step further:

Lat. clamo becomes It. llamo (yah-mo) - not only does "l" become "y," but the "c" is just plain gone. This is just another place (like nocte/noche, octo/ocho, multo/mucho) where Spanish has trouble with two consonants being together.

On to the French... which is a different verb. The Lat. appello meant "I call to..." or "I name" (like an "appellation," and the "appellate" court, to which one is called). Just as the "o" in parabolo became "e" in "Je parle," the "o" in appello becomes "e" and...

Lat. appello becomes Fr. J'appelle (zh-ah-pell) - the "je" runs into the vowel of appelle, incidentally.

So, here it is again, a little shorter:

clamo becomes chiamo and llamo, while appello becomes appelle