The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a group of

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

that developed on the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...

, an area consisting primarily of

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

Andorra , image_flag = Flag of Andorra.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Andorra.svg , symbol_type = Coat of arms , national_motto = la, Virtus Unita Fortior, label=none (Latin)"United virtue is stro ...

and southern France. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian and

Occitano-Romance The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...

language groups. Evolved from the

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

of Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, Catalan-Valencian-Balear, and Galician. These languages also have their own regional and local varieties. Based on

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

, Dalby counts seven "outer" languages, or language groups:

Galician-Portuguese Galician-Portuguese ( gl, galego-portugués or ', pt, galego-português or ), also known as Old Portuguese or as Medieval Galician when referring to the history of each modern language, was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle ...

Asturleonese Asturleonese ( ast, Asturlleonés; es, Asturleonés; pt, Asturo-leonês; mwl, Asturlhionés) is a Romance language spoken primarily in northwestern Spain, namely in the historical regions and Spain's modern-day autonomous communities of Asturi ...

, "Wider"- Aragonese, "Wider"-

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

, Provençal+Lengadocian, and "Wider"- Gascon. In addition to those languages, there are a number of

Portuguese-based creole languages Portuguese creoles are creole languages which have Portuguese as their substantial lexifier. The most widely-spoken creoles influenced by Portuguese are Cape Verdean Creole, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Papiamento. Origins Portuguese overseas e ...

and

Spanish-based creole languages A Spanish creole, or Spanish-based creole language, is a creole language (contact language with native speakers) for which Spanish serves as its substantial '' lexifier''. A number of creole languages are influenced to varying degrees by the Sp ...

, for instance Papiamento.

Origins and development

Like all Romance languages, the Iberian Romance languages descend from

, the nonstandard (in contrast to

Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...

) form of the Latin language spoken by soldiers and merchants throughout the Roman Empire. With the expansion of the empire, Vulgar Latin came to be spoken by inhabitants of the various Roman-controlled territories. Latin and its descendants have been spoken in Iberia since the Punic Wars, when the Romans conquered the territory (see Roman conquest of Hispania). The modern Iberian Romance languages were formed roughly through the following process: * The

Romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...

of the local Iberian population. * The diversification of Latin spoken in Iberia, with slight differences depending on location. * Development of Old Spanish,

and Navarro-Aragonese (the

West Iberian languages West Iberian is a branch of the Ibero-Romance languages that includes the Castilian languages ( Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Extremaduran (sometimes) and Loreto-Ucayali), Astur-Leonese ( Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Extremaduran (sometimes) and ...

) and early

Catalan language Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern ...

from Latin between the eighth and tenth centuries. The genetic classification of early Catalan and Occitan is unsettled. Some scholars place it within Ibero-Romance (hence it would be East Iberian), others place it instead within

Gallo-Romance The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Roman ...

. * Further development into modern Spanish, Portuguese, Aragonese, Asturleonese, Galician, Catalan (see

languages of Iberia Iberian languages is a generic term for the languages currently or formerly spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. Historic languages Pre-Roman languages The following languages were spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before the Roman occupation an ...

languages of Spain The languages of Spain ( es, lenguas de España), or Spanish languages ( es, lenguas españolas, link=no), are the languages spoken in Spain. Most languages spoken in Spain belong to the Romance languages, Romance language family, of which Sp ...

languages of Portugal The languages of Portugal are Portuguese, Mirandese and Portuguese Sign Language. Historically, Celtic and Lusitanian were spoken in what is now Portugal. Modern Portuguese is practically universal in Portugal, but there are some specificities ...

and languages of Andorra) between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.

Common traits between Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan

This list points to common traits of these Iberian subsets, especially when compared to the other Romance languages in general. Thus, changes such as Catalan vuit/huit and Portuguese oito vs. Spanish ocho are not shown here, as the change -it- > -ch- is exclusive to Spanish among the Iberian Romance languages.

Between Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan

Phonetic

* The length difference between r/rr is preserved through phonetic means, so that the second consonant in words such as caro and carro are not the same in any of the three. * Latin U remains and is not changed to .

Semantic

* The Iberian Romance languages all maintain a complete essence-state distinction in the copula (the verb "to be"). The "essence" form (Portuguese and Spanish ''ser'' and Catalan ''ser'' and ''ésser'') is derived in whole or in part from the Latin ''sum'' (the Latin copula), while the "state" form (''estar'' in all three languages) is derived from the Latin ''stāre'' ("to stand").

Between Spanish and Catalan, but not Portuguese

Phonetic

* The length difference between n/nn is preserved through phonetic means, so that the last consonant in words such as año (Latin anno) and mano are not the same. * The length difference between l/ll is preserved through phonetic means, so that the second consonant in words such as valle and vale are not the same. This also affects some initial L in Catalan.

Between Spanish and Portuguese, but not Catalan

Phonetic

* Initial Latin CL/FL/PL are palatalized further than in Standard Italian, and become indistinguishable (to CH in Portuguese and LL in Spanish). * Final e/o remains (although its pronunciation changed in Portuguese, and some dialects drop final E).

Grammatical

* The synthetic preterite, inherited from earlier stages of Latin, remains the main past tense.

Between Portuguese and Catalan, but not Spanish

Phonetic

* Velarized L , which existed in Latin, is preserved at the end of syllables, and was later generalized to all positions in most dialects of both languages. * Stressed Latin e/o, both open and closed, is preserved so and does not become a diphthong.

Statuses

Politically (not linguistically), there are four major officially recognised Iberian Romance languages: *

(see

names given to the Spanish language There are two names given in Spanish to the Spanish language: español ("Spanish") and castellano ("Castilian"). Spanish speakers from different countries or backgrounds can show a preference for one term or the other, or use them indiscriminat ...

), is the national and

official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...

of 21 countries, including Spain. Spanish is the fourth-most widely spoken language in the world, with over 570 total million speakers, and the second-most widely spoken ''native'' language. It has a number of dialects and varieties. *

, official language in nine countries including Portugal and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. After Spanish, Portuguese is the second most widely spoken Romance language in the world with over 250 million speakers, currently ranked seventh by number of native speakers. Various

Portuguese dialects Portuguese dialects are the mutually intelligible variations of the Portuguese language over Portuguese-speaking countries and other areas holding some degree of cultural bound with the language. Portuguese has two standard forms of writing and ...

exist outside of the

European standard European Standards (abbreviated EN, from the German name ("European Norm")) are technical standards which have been ratified by one of the three European standards organizations: European Committee for Standardization (CEN), European Committee ...

spoken in Portugal. *

is the official language in

and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

, Balearic Islands and

Valencian Community The Valencian Community ( ca-valencia, Comunitat Valenciana, es, Comunidad Valenciana) is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid wi ...

(where it is known as

Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the El Carche comarca in Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance language also known as Catal ...

), and the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

city of

Alghero Alghero (; ca, label= Alguerese, L'Alguer ; sc, S'Alighèra ; sdc, L'Aliera ) is a city of about 45,000 inhabitants in the Italian insular province of Sassari in northwestern Sardinia, next to the Mediterranean Sea. The city's name comes from ...

. It is also spoken in the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales ( Northern Catalonia) without official recognition. Catalan is closely related to

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

, with the two languages having been treated as one in studies by Occitanist linguists (such as

Pierre Bec Pierre Bec (; oc, Pèire Bèc; 11 December 1921 – 30 June 2014) was a French Occitan-language poet and linguist. Born in Paris, he spent his childhood in Comminges, where he learnt Occitan. He was deported to Germany between 1943 and 1945. Aft ...

, or more recently Domergue Sumien). When not treated as one, the two languages are widely classified together as

Occitano-Romance languages The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese ( ca, llengües occitanoromàniques; oc, lengas occitanoromanicas), or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/ Valencian and Occitan languages spoken ...

, a group which is itself sometimes grouped with the

Gallo-Romance languages The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Rom ...

. Catalan has two main dialectal branches (Eastern and Western Catalan) and several subdialects, and is spoken by about 10 million people (ranking the seventy-fifth most spoken language in the world),Ethnologue mostly in five variants:

Central Catalan Central Catalan ( ca, català central) is an Eastern Catalan dialect spoken in the whole province of Barcelona, the eastern half of the province of Tarragona and most of the province of Girona, except for its northern part, where a transition to ...

, Northern Catalan, Northwestern Catalan,

and Balearic. * Galician, co-official in Galicia and also spoken in adjacent western parts of

Asturias Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensiv ...

and Castile and León. Closely related to

, with Spanish influence. It shares the same origin as Portuguese, from the medieval

. Modern Galician is spoken by around 3.2 million people and is ranked 160th by number of speakers. Additionally, the Asturian (dialect of Asturleonese), although not an official language, is recognised by the

autonomous community eu, autonomia erkidegoa ca, comunitat autònoma gl, comunidade autónoma oc, comunautat autonòma an, comunidat autonoma ast, comunidá autónoma , alt_name = , map = , category = Autonomous administra ...

. It is one of the Asturleonese dialects with Mirandese, which in Portugal holds an official status as a minority language.See
Euromosaic report
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Family tree

The Iberian Romance languages are a conventional group of Romance languages. Many authors use the term in a geographical sense although they are not necessarily a phylogenetic group (the languages grouped as Iberian Romance may not all directly descend from a common ancestor). Phylogenetically, there is disagreement about what languages should be considered within the Iberian Romance group; for example, some authors consider that East Iberian, also called Occitano-Romance, could be more closely related to languages of northern Italy (or also Franco-Provençal, the langues d'oïl and Rhaeto-Romance). A common conventional geographical grouping is the following: *East Iberian *West Iberian Daggers (†) indicate extinct languages *Iberian Romance languages ** East Iberian (alternatively classified as

) ***Catalanic ****

**** Judaeo-Catalan† ***Occitanic **** Gardiol ****

**** Shuadit† ** West Iberian ***

**** Asturian **** Cantabrian **** Extremaduran **** Leonese **** Mirandese *** Castilian ****

**** Judaeo-Spanish ***

**** Fala **** Galician ****

Judaeo-Portuguese Judaeo-Portuguese, or Judeo-Lusitanic, is said to be the extinct Jewish language that was used by the Jews of Portugal. See also * History of the Jews in Portugal * Spanish and Portuguese Jews * Lusophone * Lusitanic Lusitanic is a term use ...

† ****

***

Pyrenean–Mozarabic West Iberian is a branch of the Ibero-Romance languages that includes the Castilian languages ( Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish, Extremaduran (sometimes) and Loreto-Ucayali), Astur-Leonese ( Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Extremaduran (sometimes) and ...

**** Navarro-Aragonese† ***** Aragonese *****

Judaeo-Aragonese Judaeo-Aragonese (Aragonese: ''Chodigo-Aragonés'') was a Judaeo-Romance language, a Jewish language that was derived from Aragonese. It was used by Spanish Jews in north-central Spain from the mid-8th century to the 1492 Alhambra Decree, wh ...

† ****

Mozarabic Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...

†

References

External links

Spanish words of Latin origin
{{Authority control Languages of Spain Languages of Portugal pl:Języki zachodnioromańskie