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, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

that developed on the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

, an area consisting primarily of

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...

and French Catalonia. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian, East Iberian ( Catalan/

Valencian Valencian can refer to: * Something related to the Valencian Community ( Valencian Country) in Spain * Something related to the city of Valencia * Something related to the province of Valencia in Spain * Something related to the old Kingdom of ...

) and Mozarabic language groups. East Iberian's classification is a subject of ongoing scholarly debate, as some argue that the Occitano-Romance languages composed of Occitan along with the aforementioned two are better classified as

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 and variously encompass the Occitan or Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic o ...

. Evolved from the

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Colloquial, Popular, Spoken or Vernacular Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. ''Vulgar Latin'' a ...

of Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are Spanish and Portuguese, followed by 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 different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...

, Dalby counts seven "outer" languages, or language groups: Galician-Portuguese, Spanish, Asturleonese, "Wider"- Aragonese, "Wider"- Catalan, 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.

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 language, literary standard language, standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It formed parallel to Vulgar Latin around 75 BC out of Old Latin ...

) 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 fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...

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

of the local Iberian population. * The diversification of Latin spoken in Iberia, with slight differences depending on location. *The break up of Ibero-Romance into several dialects. * Development of

Old Spanish Old Spanish (, , ; ), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance spoken predominantly in Castile and environs during the Middle Ages. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in O ...

, Galician-Portuguese, Old Leonese and Navarro-Aragonese (the West Iberian languages) and early

Catalan language Catalan () is a Western Romance languages, Western Romance language and is the official language of Andorra, and the official language of three autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic I ...

from Latin between the eighth and tenth centuries. The genetic classification of early Navarro-Aragonese, Catalan, and Occitan is unsettled. Some scholars place them within Ibero-Romance (hence they would be East Iberian), others place them instead within Gallo-Romance. Aragonese is further disputed between the East and West Iberian groups. * Further development into modern Spanish, Portuguese, Aragonese, Asturleonese, Galician, Catalan (see languages of Iberia:

languages of Spain The majority of languages of Spain belong to the Romance languages, Romance language family, of which Spanish language, Spanish is the only one with Official languages of Spain, official status in the whole country. Others, including Catalan l ...

, languages of Portugal 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 as /, 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 distinction between Latin short ''-n-'', ''-l-'' and long ''-nn-'', ''-ll-'' was preserved by means of palatalizing ''-nn-'', ''-ll-'' to , as in Latin ''annum'' > Spanish ''año'', Catalan ''any'' vs. Latin ''manum'' > Spanish ''mano'', Old Catalan ''man'' (modern Catalan ''mà''). This also affects some initial L in Catalan. However, in most dialects of Spanish, original has become delateralized. Portuguese maintains the distinction, but in a different way; compare ''ano'' vs. ''mão''.

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 A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, 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 ...

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 defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

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, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. 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 in Portuguese-speaking countries and other areas holding some degree of cultural bond with the language. Portuguese has two standard forms of writing and nu ...

exist outside of the

European standard European Standards, sometimes called Euronorm (abbreviated EN, from the German name , "European Norm"), are technical standards which have been ratified by one of the three European Standards Organizations (ESO): European Committee for Standardizat ...

spoken in Portugal. * Catalan is the official language in

and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands are an archipelago in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago forms a Provinces of Spain, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain, ...

and

Valencian Community The Valencian Community is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid wit ...

(where it is known as

), and the Italian city of Alghero. It is also spoken in the French department of

Pyrénées-Orientales Pyrénées-Orientales (; ; ; ), also known as Northern Catalonia, is a departments of France, department of the Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Southern France, adjacent to the northern Spain, Spanish ...

(

Northern Catalonia Northern Catalonia, North Catalonia or French Catalonia is the Catalan language, Catalan-speaking and cultural territory ceded to France by Spain through the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 in exchange for France's effective renu ...

) 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, or more recently Domergue Sumien). When not treated as one, the two languages are widely classified together as Occitano-Romance languages, a group which is itself sometimes grouped with the

. 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,

Northern Catalan Northern Catalan (), also known as Roussillonese (''rossellonès''), is a Catalan language, Catalan dialect mostly spoken in Northern Catalonia (roughly corresponding with the region of Roussillon), but also extending in the northeast part of S ...

, Northwestern Catalan,

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

Asturias Asturias (; ; ) officially the Principality of Asturias, is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensive with the provinces of Spain, province of Asturias and contains some of the territory t ...

and

Castile and León Castile and León is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwestern Spain. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, covering 94,222 km2. It is, however, sparsely populated, with a pop ...

. Closely related to Portuguese, with Spanish influence. It shares the same origin as Portuguese, from the medieval Galician-Portuguese. Modern Galician is spoken by around 3.2 million people and is ranked 160th by number of speakers. Additionally, Asturian (dialect of Asturleonese), although not an official language, is recognised by the

autonomous community The autonomous communities () are the first-level administrative divisions of Spain, created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy to the nationalities and regions that make up Sp ...

. It is one of the Asturleonese dialects along 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 **** Catalan **** Judaeo-Catalan† ***Occitanic **** Gardiol **** Occitan **** Shuadit† ** West Iberian *** Asturleonese **** Asturian **** Cantabrian **** Extremaduran **** Leonese **** Mirandese *** Castilian **** Spanish **** Judaeo-Spanish *** Galician-Portuguese **** Fala **** Galician ****

Judaeo-Portuguese Judaeo-Portuguese, Jewish-Portuguese or Judaeo-Lusitanic, is an extinct Jewish language or a dialect of Galician-Portuguese written in the Hebrew alphabet that was used by the Portuguese Jews, Jews of Portugal. Description It was the vernacula ...

† **** Portuguese *** Pyrenean–Mozarabic **** Navarro-Aragonese† ***** Aragonese ****** Judaeo-Aragonese† ***** Navarrese **** Mozarabic†

References

External links

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

Origins and development

Common traits between Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan

Between Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan

Phonetic

Semantic

Between Spanish and Catalan, but not Portuguese

Phonetic

Between Spanish and Portuguese, but not Catalan

Phonetic

Grammatical

Between Portuguese and Catalan, but not Spanish

Phonetic

Statuses

Family tree

See also

References

External links