Ancient History

BEFORE THE ROMANS
Before Romans arrived to the Peninsula, Spain was inhabited by other people. These people are called Pre-Romans peoples. When the Romans came, they met native people known as the Iberians. Iberians inhabited from the Southwest part of Spain thorough the Northeast part. Celts used to live in the North and Northwest part, while CeltiIberians inhabited in the inner part of Spain. But not only Pre-Romans lived in the Peninsula before the Romans. Other cultures came from the Mediterranean and found in Spain a good place for their business, such as the Phoenicians, who stayed in the South part of Spain, the Greeks who inhabited the East coasts from Catalonia to Valencia or the Carthaginians who came from Africa and stayed in different places like Murcia, Andalucia or Islas Baleares. Thanks to all these cultures, a lot of new things were introduced in Spain, such as the writing method, coins, unknown animals and plants, new techniques for agriculture… 

THE ROMANS

Romans stayed in Spain for a long time. When they arrived in the Peninsula, they found different cities and peoples with different habits, cultures and languages. The Romans spoke Latin, the official Italian language in the time, so they made everybody in their Empire speak Latin too. Latin became the international language of the time. So many cities and villages in all Europe started to speak Latin. In Spain, the Romans conquered almost the entire Peninsula. In these conquered territories, people had to speak Latin, but they mixed it with their own original languages, and this is how Castilian, Galician, Portuguese and Catalan languages were born. This is also why they are so similar! Because of the Latin they all have in common. These languages have changed since that period, but Latin is still present in the majority of their words. What about the Basque language? Why is it so different to the rest of languages spoken in the Peninsula? Well, we said earlier that the Romans conquered ‘almost’ the entire Peninsula, but not quite! The Basque People, in the North, never surrendered to the Roman invaders. Therefore their language was never influenced by Latin.