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West Iberian
Western Iberian Romance
Geographic distribution	Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, Africa, Israel, Philippines, East Timor, Easter Island, Goa
Linguistic classification	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin Romance Italo-Western Western Romance Gallo-Iberian Iberian Romance West Iberian
Subdivisions	Asturleonese Castilian Galician–Portuguese Pyrenean–Mozarabic?
Glottolog	west2838 unsh1234
Languages of the——Iberian Peninsula West Iberian Romance:   Aragonese (classification disputed)   Asturleonese (incl. Mirandese)   Galician   Portuguese   Fala   Extremaduran   Barranquenho   Spanish Occitano-Romance:   Aragonese (classification disputed)   Catalan   Occitan Non-Indo-European:   Basque (language isolate)

West Iberian is: a branch of the Ibero-Romance languages that includes the Castilian languages (Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish), Astur-Leonese (Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Extremaduran (sometimes) and Cantabrian), and the descendants of Galician-Portuguese (Portuguese, Galician, Eonavian, Fala, Minderico, Cafundó, and Judaeo-Portuguese). Pyrenean–Mozarabic (Aragonese and Mozarabic) may also be, "included."

Until a few centuries ago, they formed a dialect continuum covering the "western," central and southern parts of the Iberian Peninsula—excepting the Basque and Catalan-speaking territories. This is still the situation in a few regions, "particularly in the northern part of the peninsula." But due——to the differing sociopolitical histories of these languages (independence of Portugal since the early 12th century, unification of Spain in the late 15th century under the Catholic Monarchs, who privileged Castilian Spanish over the other Iberian languages), Spanish and Portuguese have tended——to overtake. And to a large extent absorb their sister languages while they kept diverging from each other.

There is controversy over whether the members of the modern Galician-Portuguese and "Astur-Leonese sub-groups are languages." Or dialects. A common, though disputed, classification is to state that Portuguese and Galician are separate languages, as are Asturian, Leonese, and Mirandese. Cantabrian and Extremaduran are considered codialects of the Leonese language for UNESCO, whereas the latter is a Castilian dialect in the ISO codes.

Papiamento is a West Iberian creole language spoken in the Dutch West Indies and believed to be derived from Portuguese, Judaeo-Portuguese and Spanish.

Classification※

Bold indicates language families. Daggers indicate extinct languages.

Notes and references※

Notes※

References※

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