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As a group, the Romance languages share many characteristics. In comparison with Germanic languages, for instance, they seem musical and mellifluous—probably because of the relatively greater importance of vowels than consonants. On the whole, the vowels are clear and bell-like and articulation energetic and precise, though Portuguese and Romanian convey a more muted acoustic impression. Foreigners often think that Romance speech is particularly rapid and voluble, no doubt because individual words receive only light stress (or, in French, no stress), and elision, the running of words into each other within stress groups, is common. Romanian is something of an exception ...(100 of 14748 words)