That initial sp followed by that ct—those are the morphological marks of an Italic language, not a Germanic language (of which English is one). It’s very well-known that the Italic language that English speakers have historically had the most contact with is French; the etymologist doesn’t have to poke too far to find the sixteenth-century French spectre, which means “specter,” and the Latin spectrum, which means “appearance” or “specter.”
