Western Romance languages

The Romance language family (simplified)

The Western Romance languages are one of the primary subdivisions of the Romance languages. They include the Gallo-Romance and Iberian-Romance branches.

Based on mutual intelligibility, Dalby counts a dozen languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Asturian-Leonese, Aragonese, Catalan, Gascon, Provençal, Gallo-Wallon, French, Franco-Provençal, Romansh, and Ladin.^[2] This classification is problematic due to the much higher levels of mutual intelligibility between Italic and Iberian languages than between either of these with Gallo-Romance languages.^[3]

Some classifications include Italo-Dalmatian; the resulting clade is generally called Italo-Western Romance. Other classifications place Italo-Dalmatian with Eastern Romance. Sardinian does not fit into either Western or Eastern Romance, and may have split off before either.

Today the four most-widely spoken standardized Western Romance languages are Spanish (c. 410 million native), Portuguese (c. 220 million native, another 45 million or so second-language speakers, mainly in Lusophone Africa), French (c. 75 million native speakers, another 70 million or so second-language speakers, mostly in Francophone Africa), and Catalan (c. 7.2 million native). Many of these languages have large numbers of non-native speakers; this is especially the case for French, in widespread use throughout West Africa as a lingua franca.

Gallo-Romance

Gallo-Romance includes:^[4]

• The Langues d'oïl, or Oïl languages. These include Standard French, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Norman.
• The Arpitan language, also known as Franco-Provençal. It shares features of both French and the Provençal dialect of Occitan. Sometimes included in the Oïl languages.

Gallo-Romance can include:

• The Rhaeto-Romance languages. They include Romansh of Switzerland, Ladin of the Dolomites area, Friulian of Friuli. Rhaeto-Romance languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance, or as an independent branch of the Western Romance languages.
• The Occitano-Romance languages of Southern France and East Iberia, includes Occitan and Catalan. Occitano-Romance languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance, Iberian-Romance, or as an independent branch of the Western Romance languages.
  • The Occitan language, or langue d'oc, has dialects such as Provençal dialect, and Gascon-Aranese dialect.
  • The Catalan language has standard forms of Catalan and Valencian. Can be classified as East Iberian.
• The Gallo-Italic languages. They include Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Gallo-Italic of Sicily and Gallo-Italic of Basilicata. Gallo-Italic languages can be classified as Gallo-Romance or as Northern Italian dialects.

The Oïl languages, Arpitan and Rhaeto-Romance languages are sometimes called Gallo-Rhaetian.

Iberian-Romance

Iberian Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula include:^[4]

• The West Iberian languages:
  • The Castilian languages: includes Spanish and Judaeo-Spanish.
  • The Galician-Portuguese languages: includes Portuguese, Galician, Fala and Uruguayan Portuñol.
  • The Astur-Leonese languages: they are, from east to west, Cantabrian, central-eastern Asturian and Leonese proper. Going from north to south, they are Leonese proper, Mirandese, Extremaduran and Barranquenho.
• The Pyrenean–Mozarabic languages: includes Aragonese, and the extinct Mozarabic. Can be classified as West Iberian.
• The East Iberian language, or Catalan language: usually classified as part of Occitano-Romance, see Gallo-Romance above.

References