Why does Italian drop the "e".....?

.....at the begining of words, while French and Spanish preserve the "es" form, and Italian drops the 'e'? Was this a result of lazy speech, in relatively recent time periods, or was this something that developed far earlier in history? I'm not sure, so I hesitate to say this, but I think that French and Spanish remain closer to the original Latin by maintaining the "es" form in many words.

Well you're going to have to show some examples of the original latin words where Italian loses the E. In most cases (or the ones that I have encountered), Spanish adds an E to the S, and French replaces the S with an E.

Like in the word "Escritura". The original latin word for that is "Scriptura". Spanish added an E. If it follows the rule, the French word would be "Écriture" and Italian would be "Scriptura" or "Scripture"

Italian (scrittura)
Spanish (escritura)
Latin (scriptura)

Probabaly, what LAA was* refering to was this:
esta/esto/este -y- es (spanish)
est (french)
est -et- es (latin)
est (sardu)
este (romanian)
es (catalan)


Overall, It's Portuguese and Italian whom have lost the "es" in -est-. Anyhow, I have seen -Portuguese- use "é" MORE (but, -es- in portuguese is still applied in some cases.)

There's a lot of words, like "Espagnol" vs. "Spagnolo", or the words for "excuse me", etc.

LAA,
I think it is the other way around. The Italian maintained the original "sp" while Spansih and French have modified it.

Latin: stella (star)
[It] stella [Sp] estrella [Fr] étoile

Latin: spes (hope)
[It] speranza [Sp] esperanza [Fr] espérance

Latin: studio (to study)
[It] studiare [Sp] estudiare [Fr] étudier

Latin: spiritus (spirit)
[It] spirito [Sp] espíritu [Fr] esprit

As you can see, JR is right about the cursory rule, add "e" at the front for Spanish and French, but in French usually take out the "s". The Spanish addition of the "e" seems to be more consistent, than the French additions and removal.

Latin: statua (statue)
[It] statua [Sp] estatua [Fr] statue

LAA, you're correct.

Observe the following;

Latin:
Hispaniolus
Excusare
Historia
etc.

Spanish:
Español
Excusar
Historia
etc.

Italian:
Spagnolo
Scusare
Storia
etc.

Check out these links-->
http://www.geocities.com/email_theguy/rexample.htm
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenguas_romances

LAA, I really *doubt* Latin has a word for Spanish. "Exscuse" me is not from an original Latin word beginning with "S", but rather "ex" - which I would think is a different heritage from just "s" as you cited in the first post.

Ah, I see now Aldvm. I see what you are talking about now then, LAA.

Yes thank you. But I also see what you're saying Tiffany. I guess it's a little of both.

And if ebonics was to develop into its own language, I think 90% of its vocabulary would be abbreviations, lol.

It was just a joke. Red necks are just as bad, but teenagers are also notorious for shortening words.

It's funny. My friend and I developed this secret language, where no one could understand what we were saying, even in their presence, so we could communicate in ways which they would not pick up. We spoke in a mumbled manner (kind of like James Brown when he was singing or Van Morrison). And we would abbreviate a lot of words, and to top it off, use a lot of black (he was black) and Mexican slang, so that it was totally unintelligable to anyone else. I honestly don't know how we understood each other with the extent to which we mumbled, but we could. It was actually very funny.

LAA : « .....at the begining of words, while French and Spanish preserve the "es" form, and Italian drops the 'e'? Was this a result of lazy speech, in relatively recent time periods, or was this something that developed far earlier in history? I'm not sure, so I hesitate to say this, but I think that French and Spanish remain closer to the original Latin by maintaining the "es" form in many words. »

Ce n'est pas une question de paresse et c'est plus complexe qu'il n'y paraît à première vue.

1/ Il y a des cas ou le <e> est un ***AJOUT*** propre au castillan et au français : le <e> n'est présent ni en latin ni en italien.
Exemple : La/It/Li <stella>, Pi <stèila> vs Fr <étoile>, AF <esteile>/<estoille>, Sa <étêla>, Oc <estela>, Es <estrella>, Ca <estel>/<estrella>.

2/ Puis d'autre cas ou le <e> original latin se ***MAINTIENT*** en castillan et en français alors qu'il disparaît en italien.
Exemple : La <excusare>, Fr <excuser>, Es <excusar>, Ca <excusar> vs It <scusare>.