Iberian Romance languages

Origins and development

• The Romanization 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, Galician-Portuguese, Old Leonese and Navarro-Aragonese and early Catalan language 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, 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 between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.

  Common traits between Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan

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 "essence" form is derived in whole or in part from the Latin sum, while the "state" form is derived from the Latin stāre.

  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. 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.
• Final e/o remains.

  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

• Spanish, is the national and official language 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. 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 exist outside of the European standard spoken in Portugal.
• Catalan is the official language in Andorra and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, and the Italian city of Alghero. It is also spoken in the French department of Pyrénées-Orientales without official recognition. Catalan is closely related to Occitan, with the two languages having been treated as one in studies by Occitanist linguists. 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 Gallo-Romance languages. Catalan has two main dialectal branches and several subdialects, and is spoken by about 10 million people, mostly in five variants: Central Catalan, Northern Catalan, Northwestern Catalan, Valencian and Balearic.
• Galician, co-official in Galicia and also spoken in adjacent western parts of Asturias and Castile and León. 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.

Family tree

• East Iberian
• West Iberian

• Iberian Romance languages
• *East Iberian
• **Catalanic
• ***Catalan
• ***Judaeo-Catalan†
• **Occitanic
• ***Gardiol
• ***Occitan
• ***Shuadit†
• *West Iberian
• **Asturleonese
• ***Asturian
• ***Cantabrian
• ***Extremaduran
• ***Leonese
• ***Mirandese
• **Castilian
• ***Spanish
• ***Judaeo-Spanish
• **Galician-Portuguese
• ***Eonavian
• ***Fala
• ***Galician
• ***Judaeo-Portuguese†
• ***Portuguese
• ** Pyrenean–Mozarabic
• ***Navarro-Aragonese†
• ****Aragonese
• *****Valencian Aragonese†
• *****Judaeo-Aragonese†
• ****Navarrese†
• ****Riojan†
• ***Mozarabic†