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

Topography and population dispersion explains a lot.
Mountainous border and sparsely populated border region probably account for the cultural isolation.

My mom's neighbors hosted an exchange student from Spain a couple of years ago. At the time, I was toying around with a foreign language app and was nowhere near conversant with Spanish, but I tried. She was from near Barcelona.

While engaging her several times about the languages and culture of the area, I found that her kitchen table language was Catalan (which I had never even heard of), then Spanish, French, Italian, and English. I was amazed at the 17 year old's grasp of the world.

It is shocking to me that you can drive 100 miles and be in another country and immersed in a different language.

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My mom's neighbors hosted an exchange student from Spain a couple of years ago. At the time, I was toying around with a foreign language app and was nowhere near conversant with Spanish, but I tried. She was from near Barcelona.

While engaging her several times about the languages and culture of the area, I found that her kitchen table language was Catalan (which I had never even heard of), then Spanish, French, Italian, and English. I was amazed at the 17 year old's grasp of the world.

It is shocking to me that you can drive 100 miles and be in another country and immersed in a different language.

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Another weird thing about Europe is that there are a few "micro" states like Andorra.

Monaco is the most famous one.

Andorra sits between France and Spain. It is ruled jointly by 2 princes. One is a bishop from Spain, and the other is the president of France.

Another one is Liechtenstein that sits between Switzerland and Austria. It is ruled by a prince. Why not just declare yourself king???

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My understanding is that Flemish is one of the two languages spoken in Belgium, along with French. And Flemish is a dialect of Dutch.

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Yes, basically modern Dutch is Flemish.

That was my point. Belgium is between The Netherlands, France and Germany.

So, they didn't end up with their own language - they speak all three neighboring languages - with a Belgian accent, no less.

Catalan and especially Basque (isn't even Latin based) are also distinct but they all speak Spanish since they're apart of the Spanish crown.

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Andorra sits between France and Spain. It is ruled jointly by 2 princes. One is a bishop from Spain, and the other is the president of France.

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The country has two post offices one for France and the other for Spain.

I think there are a few Occitan speakers in spain as well.

Portuguese has definitely always sounded more slavic than latin based to me.

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BasqueEuskara is completely different from every language in the world. It has no proven relationship to any other living language family. It's the most isolated language in the world of language isolates.

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I’ve more than once been sucked down rabbit holes on the Basque language. It’s absolutely fascinating. Their cheesecakes are pretty dope as well.

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Portugal is nothing more than "western" Spain. Portugal shares no border with any other country. It is completely surrounded by Spain except for its western coast.

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Catalan and Basque all exist as totally distinct languages from Spanish within Spain (and Andorra).