We have seen in Chapter 2 that all languages exist in a state of orderly heterogeneity, whether one is considering the spatial, the social or the diachronic aspects of variation, and in Chapter 3 we have considered the way in which such organized variation frequently determines the way in which language change proceeds. Many of these general issues have been illustrated with data taken from the Peninsular languages, but in the present chapter we come to a more systematic consideration of the distribution of linguistic features in the Spanish Peninsula. First we shall consider geographical variation, seeking an explanation for the main patterns of distribution of these features across the Peninsula. Then we shall turn to social aspects of variation, where reasons for particular patterns of heterogeneity will be hard to find, but where we shall study some of the many striking instances in which linguistic and social variation are correlated.

Geographical variation

The present geographical distribution of features in the Peninsula has been determined by two sets of circumstances, namely the existence of a northern dialect continuum, and the territorial expansion of northern varieties which accompanied the reconquest of Islamic Spain. The northern dialect continuum stretches across the northern third, approximately, of the Peninsula, and is part of the Romance dialect continuum which extends from northwestern Spain into France and thence into Belgium, Switzerland and Italy (see sections 1.1.1 and 4.1.2).