The langues d'oïl ( French: ), or oïl languages (also in ), are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives spoken today in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger Gallo-Romance languages, which also cover most of east-central (Arpitania) and southern France (Occitania), northern Italy and eastern Spain (Catalan Countries), although some linguists place Catalan into the Ibero-Romance grouping instead.