I think it's a mistake to view that situation as unique to English.
Spain is still a multi lingual country with several local languages each of them centuries old. But even ignoring that and focusing only on Castilian, there were invasions by goths, who left behind words like ropa or guardar, and Arabic speakers, who left behind words like almacén.
Like English having both cow and beef, there are words with historical overlap but different etymologies and divergent meaning over time. For example almacén and bodega were both words for a warehouse.
There are also tons of words where Spanish had phonetically diverged from latin, but then the same word was re-imported from latin in "educated" use.
Spain is still a multi lingual country with several local languages each of them centuries old. But even ignoring that and focusing only on Castilian, there were invasions by goths, who left behind words like ropa or guardar, and Arabic speakers, who left behind words like almacén.
Like English having both cow and beef, there are words with historical overlap but different etymologies and divergent meaning over time. For example almacén and bodega were both words for a warehouse.
There are also tons of words where Spanish had phonetically diverged from latin, but then the same word was re-imported from latin in "educated" use.