Romans became the rulers of all the Iberian Peninsula, though their control was never very strong in the Cantabrian region. Latin superseded previously spoken tongues and these stopped being used, with the exception of (proto)Basque.

Actually spoken Latin wasn't exactly 'Classical' Latin, the later being the language of culture used for many centuries and even now. Spoken Latin was always more or less different, and with time it gave rise to several languages, Romance languages. Nevertheless, until the Middle Ages only the classical language was written down (or at least it was pretended to be).

 Traces of the vulgar speech can be found in inscriptions, and some words are quoted in classical works (often just to reject them).

The conversion of vulgar Latin into the different Romance dialects is a continuous process where no clear-cut division can be drawn. In the Renaissance, even later, the learned could yet build sentences that at the same time were Latin and Romance.

As a language of culture and religion, Latin has never ceased to influence Roman languages, by way of loans and otherwise. There are many words of Latin origin in Basque too.

Here's a link to a Finnish radio station. They broadcast every day for some minutes in Latin.

Hispanic Romance languages (except Mozarabic) were born in the North of the Peninsula and extended southwards along with the occupation by Christian kingdoms of lands formerly in hands of the Muslim.

Beginning in the IXth-Xth century, some Romance words can be found in Latin texts. For some centuries dialectal boundaries were fuzzy, because all dialects were quite similar and several linguistic standards interfered with each other. Speakers of the different dialects possibly had no much trouble to understand one another.
 

From left to right:   Galician Leonese Castilian Basque Aragonese Catalonian Above: Provençal (Occitan) Below: Arabic / Mozarabic.

• Galician-Portuguese: Galician-Portuguese is the language of the oldest Romance lyric poetry, and it was also used outside its territories


 Officialy, Portuguese is spoken in Portugal, Brazilian in Brazil and Galician in Galicia. Official Galician is quite different to the other norms. Nevertheless, spoken dialects of Galician blend themselves with those spoken in Portugal, and the general view is that the language is the same.
At present, the boundary between Portugal and Spain does not coincide with the limits of Portuguese and Leonese or Castilian. In Spain, Portuguese dialects are spoken in and around Valverde del Fresno (Cáceres) and Olivenza (Badajoz).

Links: Xunta de Galicia pages of the Galician government; Diário de Notícias a Portuguese newspaper.
 
 

• Astur-Leonese: From Asturies Leonese extended almost till Andalusia. In the Middle Ages Leonese was reputed more elegant, and consequently preferable for literature. Anyway, Castilian began to displace it very soon.


Now several Bable dialects are spoken in Asturies, and Leonese dialects in León, north of Cáceres and Miranda, in Portugal.

A link to some news in Bable
 
 

• Castilian was born in present-day Cantabria, closely linked with Basque. For centuries Castilian took over the bigger part of re-conquered territories and absorbed Leonese, Aragonese and Mozarabic.


In the beginning, Castilian was considered less elegant than Leonese or Aragonese. Many of the first literary works have come to us written down in those languages, though some of them were composed in Castilian. This is the case with epic poetry (Poema de Mío Cid). King Alphonse Xth, the Sage, standardized Castilian as official and literate language.

In the XVIth century, southern Castilian stops differentiating two phonemes, and that's the main characteristic of Andalusian dialects. Dialects of this type are also spoken in the Canaries and in America (in northern dialects 'caza' and 'casa' are uttered differently; in the southern ones their pronunciation is the same).
 

The written language is the same in all countries where Castilian is used, while there are different spoken dialects, mutually intelligible. The main peninsular dialects are Andalusian and several 'transitional speeches': those of La Rioja, Extremadura and Murcia. None of these is homogeneous, and they are seldom written.


Castilian is an official language in all Spain, and it is spoken by a great majority of population (though possibly one out of four Spaniards is bilingual). This is the reason why internationally the term 'Spanish' is preferred instead of 'Castilian', a denomination technically more adequate.
 
 

• Navarro-Aragonese: The older texts written in any of the Peninsular Romances are Aragonese. They are glosses, that is, explanations of words written in Latin. The 'Glosas Emilianenses' and 'Silenses' are dated in the Xth-XIth century. A glossary dated  in 964 has been recently discovered.

(At present there are some speakers of Aragonese in the Pirenees. Some efforts are being made to revitalize the language; see Consello d'a Fabla Aragonesa
 
 
• Catalonian: The first known text in Catalonian is the Homilies of Organyà (s. XII). During the Middle Ages Catalonian extended into Valencia and the Balearic islands; in Murcia it receded before Castilian.

Now, Catalonian is an official language in Andorra (semidependent state of Spain and France) and in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic islands (autonomous regions in Spain). Outside Spain, Catalonian is also spoken in Rossillon (France) and at Alghero, a city in the island of Sardinia.

Officially, in the Balearic islands the 'Balearic variety of Catalonian', in Valencia the 'Valencian language', are respectively spoken.
 

In linguistic terms, there is no doubt that they are all variants of the same language: they are mutually intelligible without effort. Nonetheless, for many Valencians their language is a different one. Their reasons can be found here here .


A link to a newspaper in Barcelona (Catalonian from Catalonia proper).
 
 

• Mozarabic: what is known about the Romance dialect or dialects spoken in al Andalus is based upon place names, some quoted words and specially the 'jarchas'. These are verses in Romance speech inserted in poems written in Arabic and Hebrew. Mozarabic words, mainly names for plants, can also be found in some mediaeval dictionaries.

 

 

• Aranese is spoken in the Arán valley, in Lleida (cast. Lérida), Catalonia. It's a dialect of Gascon, in turn a dialect of Occitan, the Romance language of southern France. Aranese is the third official language in the Aran valley.

In the Middle Ages Provençal and Gascon were literary languages, widely used in Catalonia.

 Links: a poem in Aranese, a page in Gascon,  Occitan links .
 
 

• French was the language of many peregrins in the 'Camino de Santiago' in the Middle Ages. Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia had quite strong links with France. Among the settlers of the lands taken from the Arabs there were some French too.

In modern times, Napoleon occupied Spain for some years in the XIXth century, and the French kept ruling the island of Minorca for some more time.
 
 
• 'Ladino' is the Castilian speech of the expelled Jews. Some of their descendants still use it.

 

 

• Papiamentu is the creole of Curaçao, in the Dutch Antilles. It's a mixture of the indigenous Amerindian language and Castilian, with some African, Portuguese and Dutch elements. Some words in Papiamentu can be found here.