Origins and Development
See also: History of Spanish, History of Portuguese, and History of CatalanLike 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).
The modern Iberian Romance languages were formed roughly through the following process:
- The Latinisation of the local Iberian population.
- The diversification of Latin spoken in Iberia, with slight differences depending on location.
- Development of Old Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Navarro-Aragonese (West Iberian) and early Catalan language from Latin between the eighth and tenth centuries. The genetic classification of early Catalan is uncertain. Some scholars place it within Ibero-Romance (hence it would be East Iberian), others place it within Gallo-Romance, specifically among the Occitano-Romance languages.
- Further development into modern Castilian, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, etc. (see Languages of Iberia: Languages of Spain, Languages of Portugal and Languages of Andorra) between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries.
Read more about this topic: Iberian Romance Languages
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