The history of the Spanish language spans at least 22 centuries, from the Roman conquest of Hispania (modern day Spain and Portugal) to the use of modern Spanish around the world. Evolving from spoken Latin, the Spanish language was invented by Christian Kingdoms as they reconquered the Iberian Peninsula. The Kingdom of Castile emerged as the dominant force and Old Castilian Spanish emerged as the official language of the united Spain.Each of the kingdoms participating in the Reconquista spoke various dialects of spoken Latin, a descendent of the formal Latin of the Roman Empire. The various languages and dialects in the Iberian Peninsula today, such as Castilian (Spanish), Catalan, Portuguese, and Galician, can be traced back to these competing kingdoms. Over time, these kingdoms reconquered the Iberian Peninsula parallel to each other from the north into the south. Consequently, the languages in the Iberian Peninsula show a striking east-west patterns, like a layered cake. Portuguese is spoken in a strip of land in the west of the Iberian Peninsula from Galicia southwards. It is not surprising that Old Portuguese is also known as Galician-Portuguese or Medieval Galician, as these languages are closely related. Similarly, Catalan is primarily spoken on a thin strip on the east coast of Spain while the center of the Peninsula was occupied by Leonese, Castilian, and Aragonese. Modern Spanish derived from Old Castilian Spanish which emerged during the Reconquista as the dominant of various spoken Latin dialects that expanded from the north of Spain as Christian kingdoms expanded their influence southwards. This gives us the origin time of spanish and the history behind its making, if not for the reconquista and the mixing of languages spanish as a whole would not have been as common as it is today.