Iberia talk · Languages in Iberia
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Languages in Iberia
Languages in Iberia
Spanish - Official language of Spain, with status of co-officiality in some regions with historic languages
Portuguese - The official language of Portugal
Basque - Co-official language in Spain unrelated to any other European language, spoken in the Basque Country in the northern part of the peninsula
Catalan - Co-official in Spain and the only official language in Andorra, mainly spoken in Andorra, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia.
Galician - Co-official language in Spain, mainly spoken in Galicia, closely related to Portuguese
English - Official language of Gibraltar
With the exception of Basque, all the languages of the Iberian peninsula are from the Romance family of languages which has its roots in Latin, so if you speak one of those languages, you'll find it fairly easy to pick up the rest.
While most younger people have learnt English in school, it is not widely spoken or understood outside the small British exclave of Gibraltar, where it is the official language. As elsewhere in the world English proficiency improves the closer you get to major tourists centres, especially in the coastal resort cities along the Mediterranean coast and in Barcelona, where English proficiency is much higher than in the rest of the country. English proficiency is generally better in Portugal than in Spain, as Portuguese in the European context is a minor language, and English-language films and television shows are regularly screened in their original language with subtitles instead of being dubbed into the local language as in Spain.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Iberia
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Iberia Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.