Burning question: How did Portuguese evolve as a language distinct from Spanish?

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Great question — the premise about geography is essentially correct (Portugal is indeed only bordered by Spain and the Atlantic), which makes the linguistic divergence even more fascinating. Here's why Portuguese and Spanish ended up so different despite being neighbors:

They share a common ancestor, but diverged early and under different influences
Both languages descend from Vulgar Latin brought by Roman colonizers. But after Rome fell, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by Germanic tribes, then the Moors (Arabic-speaking North Africans) in 711 AD. The Reconquista — the centuries-long Christian reconquest — happened at different rates in different regions, and this timing matters enormously.
The County of Portugal gained independence in 1128 and became a kingdom in 1139, very early in the Reconquista. This meant Portuguese evolved in relative political and cultural isolation from the kingdoms that would eventually become Spain (Castile, Aragon, etc.). Language doesn't just follow geography — it follows political and institutional boundaries.

The phonological divergence is the real culprit
This is the core reason Spanish speakers specifically struggle to understand spoken Portuguese. The two languages actually share a huge percentage of vocabulary and grammar — on paper they're quite similar. But Portuguese sound changes went in a dramatically different direction:

Vowel reduction: Unstressed vowels in Portuguese are swallowed or nearly silent. "De nada" in Spanish is clear; the Portuguese equivalent involves sounds that seem to disappear entirely to Spanish ears.
Nasal vowels: Portuguese has nasal vowels (like French or Polish) that Spanish completely lacks — sounds like ão, ã, em. These are alien to Spanish phonology.
Sibilant consonants: Portuguese preserved a much more complex system of s, z, sh, and zh sounds. European Portuguese in particular sounds almost Slavic to unaccustomed ears.
Vowel mergers: Many vowels that are distinct in Spanish collapsed into similar sounds in Portuguese, making it harder to parse words.

The result is that a Spanish speaker can read Portuguese with moderate effort, but hearing it spoken at normal speed feels like an entirely different language.

Celtic, Arabic, and other substrate influences hit unevenly
Pre-Roman Celtic languages, Visigothic Germanic dialects, and especially Arabic left different residues in different regions. Portuguese absorbed a significant number of Arabic words (particularly in Southern Portugal, which was under Moorish control longer), and the northwest — where Portuguese originated — had distinct pre-Roman linguistic substrates from Galicia that influenced its development.

Portuguese and Galician are actually sister languages
Modern Portuguese evolved from Galician-Portuguese, a medieval language spoken in the northwest of Iberia (modern Galicia, in Spain, and northern Portugal). It was actually the prestige literary language of Iberia in the medieval period — even Castilian poets wrote in it. When Portugal expanded southward and became a maritime empire, the language spread globally and continued evolving distinctly. Galician still exists today in northwestern Spain and is more mutually intelligible with Portuguese than Spanish is.

The bottom line: Geography would suggest convergence, but political separation, divergent sound changes, and separate colonial/imperial trajectories caused Portuguese to evolve along a very different phonological path. The writing systems look similar; the mouths that produce them sound worlds apart.

Basque me know language questions, I’ll tell you no Thai.

The Portuguese ate even more peanut butter.

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Moors

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Moops!

it all started with the french knights going to fight the moors.

Because Portugal and Spain are two different countries.

Castille and Aragon had two different languages before they merged together. Castillian (now just known as Spanish) was adopted as the language of the new country, and Aragonese fade into obscurity.

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Burning question: How did Portuguese evolve as a language distinct from Spanish?

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It was more due to a stubbornness NOT to evolve, I would venture to say.

Most small regions in Europe spoke rather distinct languages, and all sort of eventually evolved into something singular for their larger country/region. The Italian peninsula is a good example of this.

The way I've always understood it is that until relatively recently, Portuguese was something like an equivalent to Catalan, Galician, Asturian, and Castilian in that it was one of four or five major Latin-derived dialects spoken on the peninsula. While there are remnants of Galician and Asturian still spoken, they were largely subsumed by Castilian as Spain became a global power, unified its educational system, etc. Obviously Catalan (which sits somewhere between Occitan and Castilian Spanish) is still widely spoken but through historical and political evolution, isn't as widely recognized as a global language as Portuguese.

One analogy that has stuck with me is that until relatively recently (the late 19th century or so), a person could go all the way from the bootheel of Italy and understand the person from the next village over; then that person could go to the next village over and understand that person; and so on and so on all the way up through Switzerland, eastern France, French-speaking Belgium, Piedmont, southern France, western France, and the Iberian peninsula. But if you dropped someone off from Normandy into southern Italy, they would have minimal mutual intelligibility.

Basically, all Vulgar Latin-derived languages were more of a continuum rather than a sharp divide between Sicilian and Tuscan, Romansh vs Piedmontese, Norman vs. Burgundian, Portuguese vs. Galician, etc., etc., etc. It was only as states became more and more centralized, minority dialects got swamped out (especially in France and Spain), educational systems became more formal, and so on did that continuum - which still exists to some degree - became more of a series of sharper borders.

I was in Barcelona in February, didn't realize that Spanish isn't their first language.

Catalan is the primary, co-official language of the region of Catalonia. It is used in local administration, education, and public signage.

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Moops

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