Evolved from the Vulgar Latin of Iberia, the most widely spoken Iberian Romance languages are Spanish and Portuguese, followed by Catalan-Valencian-Balear and Galician.
With the expansion of the empire, Vulgar Latin came to be spoken by inhabitants of the various Roman-controlled territories.
The modern Iberian Romance languages were formed roughly through the following process: Asturian (ast) Leonese (mwl) Mirandese (mwl) Spanish (spa) Portuguese (por) Galician (glg) Xalimego (fax) This list points to common traits of these Iberian subsets, especially when compared to the other Romance languages in general.
It is one of the Asturleonese dialects along with Mirandese, which in Portugal holds an official status as a minority language.
Phylogenetically, there is disagreement about what languages should be considered within the Iberian Romance group; for example, some authors consider that East Iberian, also called Occitano-Romance, could be more closely related to languages of northern Italy (or also Franco-Provençal, the langues d'oïl and Rhaeto-Romance).