Palatalization in the Romance languages
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Palatalization in the Romance languages encompasses various historical sound changes which caused consonants to develop a palatal articulation or secondary articulation, as well as certain further developments such as affrication.[lower-alpha 1] It resulted in the creation of several consonants that had not existed in Classical Latin, such as the Italian [t͡s d͡z ʃ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ɲ ʎ].
Certain types of palatalization affected all Romance languages, and were in some cases discernible in Late Latin, while others affected only a subset of languages and are only known from later evidence. Palatalization was not a single event but rather occurred multiple times in the development of Romance, in different places and in different ways.