Latin which was first introduced into it was
the Latin of Plautus, but the subjugation of the country occupied more
than sixty years, and during this period fresh troops were steadily poured
into the peninsula, and later on there was frequently an interchange of
legions between Spain and the other provinces. Furthermore, new
communities of Roman citizens were established there even down into the
Empire, and traders were steadily moving into the province. In this way it
would seem that the Latin of the early second century which was originally
carried into Spain must have been constantly undergoing modification,
and, so far as this influence goes, made approximately like the Latin
spoken elsewhere in the Empire.

A more satisfactory explanation seems to be that first clearly propounded
by the Italian philologist, Ascoli. His reasoning is that when we acquire
a foreign language we find it very difficult, and often impossible, to
master some of the new sounds. Our ears do not catch them exactly, or we
unconsciously substitute for the foreign sound some sound from our own
language. Our vocal organs, too, do not adapt themselves readily to the
reproduction of the strange sounds in another tongue, as we know from the
difficulty which we have in pronouncing the French nasal or the German
guttural. Similarly English differs somewhat as it is spoken by a
Frenchman, a German, and an Italian. The Frenchman has a tendency to
import the nasal into it, and he is also inclined to pronounce it like his
own language, while the German favors the guttural. In a paper on the
teaching of modern languages in our schools, Professor Grandgent says:[14]
"Usually there is no attempt made to teach any French sounds but _u_ and
the four nasal vowels; all the rest are unquestioningly replaced by the
English vowels and consonants that most nearly resemble them." The
substitution of sounds from one's own language in speaking a foreign
tongue, and the changes in voice-inflection, are more numerous and more
marked if the man who learns the new language is uneducated and acquires
it in casual intercourse from an uneducated man who speaks carelessly.

This was the state of things in the Roman provinces of southern Europe
when the Goths, Lombards, and other peoples from the North gradually
crossed the frontier and settled in the territory of Latin-speaking
peoples. In the sixth century, for instance, the Lombards in Italy, the
Franks in France, and the Vi