The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages

Iberian languages 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 ...

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 The Iberian language was the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre- Migration Era (before about 375 AD). The ...

. 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") , ...

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 th ...

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 = Gibr ...

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 Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', A ...

. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian and Occitano-Romance 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, Portuguese, 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 ...

, 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 ...

, Spanish, Asturleonese, "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 and Spanish-based creole languages, for instance

Papiamento Papiamento () or Papiamentu (; nl, Papiaments) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), with official status in Arub ...

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 The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146BC fought between Rome and Carthage. Three conflicts between these states took place on both land and sea across the western Mediterranean region and involved a total of forty-three ye ...

, when the Romans conquered the territory (see

Roman conquest of Hispania The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was a process by which the Roman Republic seized territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the Car ...

). 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 Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...

, Asturleonese and

Navarro-Aragonese Navarro-Aragonese is a Romance language once spoken in a large part of the Ebro River basin, south of the middle Pyrenees, although it is only currently spoken in a small portion of its original territory. The areas where it was spoken might have ...

(the West Iberian languages) 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-Rom ...

. * Further development into modern Spanish, Portuguese, Aragonese, Asturleonese, Galician, Catalan (see languages of Iberia:

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 language family, of which Spanish is the only ...

, languages of Portugal and

languages of Andorra The historic and official language is Catalan, a Romance language. Because of immigration, historical links, and close geographic proximity, Spanish and French are commonly spoken. There is a sizeable immigrant community that speaks Portuguese ...

) 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 Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being. Etymology The term ''existence'' comes from Old French ''existence'', from Medieval Latin ''existentia/exsisten ...

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 A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

Statuses

Politically (not linguistically), there are four major officially recognised Iberian Romance languages: * Spanish (see names given to the Spanish language), 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. * Portuguese, 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 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 no ...

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

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), and the Italian 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 Pyrénées-Orientales (; ca, Pirineus Orientals ; oc, Pirenèus Orientals ; ), also known as Northern Catalonia, is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France, adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea ...

(

Northern Catalonia Northern Catalonia, North Catalonia, ; french: Catalogne (du) Nord ; oc, Catalonha (del) Nòrd; es, Cataluña (del) Norte) French Catalonia or Roussillon refers to the Catalan-speaking and Catalan-culture territory ceded to France by Spain ...

) without official recognition. Catalan is closely related to Occitan, 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. A ...

, 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 t ...

Northern Catalan Northern Catalan ( ca, català septentrional), also known as Roussillonese (''rossellonès''), is a Catalan dialect mostly spoken in Northern Catalonia (roughly corresponding with the region of Roussillon), but also extending in the northeas ...

Northwestern Catalan Catalan (; Endonym, autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (Endonym, autonym: ), is a Western Romance languages, Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language o ...

, Valencian and Balearic. * Galician, co-official in

Galicia Galicia may refer to: Geographic regions * Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain ** Gallaecia, a Roman province ** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia ** The medieval King ...

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 Castile and León ( es, Castilla y León ; ast-leo, Castiella y Llión ; gl, Castela e León ) is an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. It was created in 1983, eight years after the end of the Francoist regime, by the merging of th ...

. Closely related to Portuguese, 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 The Mirandese language ( mwl, mirandés, links=no or ''lhéngua mirandesa''; pt, mirandês or ) is an Astur-Leonese language or language variety that is sparsely spoken in a small area of northeastern Portugal in Terra de Miranda (made up of ...

, 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 Judaeo-Catalan ( he, קטלאנית יהודית; ca, judeocatalà, ), also called Catalanic or Qatalanit ( he, קאטאלנית; ca, catalànic or '), was a presumed Jewish language spoken by the Jews in Northern Catalonia and what is today ...

† ***Occitanic **** Gardiol **** Occitan ****

Shuadit Shuadit (also spelled ''Chouhadite'', ''Chouhadit'', ''Chouadite'', ''Chouadit'', and ''Shuhadit''), also called Judæo-Occitan or less accurately Judæo-Provençal or Judæo-Comtadin, is an extinct Occitan dialect historically spoken by Frenc ...

† ** West Iberian *** Asturleonese **** Asturian **** Cantabrian **** Extremaduran **** Leonese ****

*** Castilian **** Spanish ****

Judaeo-Spanish Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...

***

**** 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 * Pallache family "Pa ...

† **** Portuguese *** Pyrenean–Mozarabic ****

† ***** 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†

References

External links

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