Spanish is a member of the Romance family of languages. They are called Romance languages not for being romantic, (which they are!) but for originating from Rome where Latin was spoken. All modern forms of these languages originated from a later form of Latin called Vulgar Latin spoken in the 7th through 9th centuries. To show the similarity between Romance languages here are a few examples of the word for sun:
soleil (French), sol (Spanish), sole (Italian), sol (Portuguese), soare (Romanian)
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