Iberian Romance languages
| Iberian Romance | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Originally Iberian Peninsula and southern France; now worldwide |
| Linguistic classification: | Indo-European |
| Subdivisions: |
|
| Glottolog: |
sout3183 (Shifted Iberian) unsh1234 (Aragonese–Mozarabic) |
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or simply Iberian languages are the Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra, and in southern France.
Originating in Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan and Galician. These languages also have their own regional and local dialects. Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby counts seven "outer" languages, or language groups: Portuguese+Galician, Spanish, Asturian+Leonese, "Wider"-Aragonese, "Wider"-Catalan, Provençal+Lengadocian, and "Wider"-Gascon.
Like all Romance languages, the Iberian Romance languages descend from Vulgar Latin. Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard (in contrast to Classical 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, when the Romans conquered the territory (see Roman conquest of Hispania).
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