Compared With The Dialects Of Arabic, Why Are Romance Languages Considered To Be Independent Languages In Their Own Right?

Abstract

In this paper we attempt to understand why speakers of Romance languages such as French, Spanish and Italian find themselves unable to communicate when their languages share enormous lexical similarities.  Lexical similarities that are greater than those shared by the dialects of Arabic. And yet, despite the initial noise and difficulties, speakers of Arabic dialects always manage to communicate in the end, or at least to make themselves understood. In our view, the explanation lies in morphosyntax.