The Denmark of the South: Portugal?

[Ouistreham]

Both countries have a younger-brother complex in front of their potent neighbour:
• Spain appears like a continent, Portugal is just a part of its Western coast.
• Sweden is a sub-continent, with off the shore a cluster of sandbanks called Danmark.

But both Denmark and Portugal remember they once ruled over huge maritime empires.

A province of Spain (Galicia) should have been Portuguese.
A province of Sweden (Scania, the Southern tip) should have remained Danish.

Both couples use almost the same language when written. But starting from a common basis they managed to develop fully different phonetical systems.

I've learnt Italian, which allows me to understand effortless 30 to 50% of Spanish (depending on the context) but 0% of Portuguese.

I'm fairly fluent in Swedish, but until I got some exposure to Danish I was unable to grasp a single word of it.

Sometimes I have the paranoid feeling that Danish and Portuguese were invented as secret communication codes to keep foreigners away.

Another parallel is:
• Portugal is a Mediterranean country that doesn't touches anywhere the Mediterranean sea.
• Danmark is a Scandinavian country whose nature is absolutely alien to the rocky Scandinavian peninsula.

[Tenma de Pegasus]

Dont feel so bad, not even us brazilians understand the portugueses

[Alexandro]

I looked at the title of this thread sort of puzzled, haha, but you do bring up some interesting parallels between nations you might not typically associate with each other.

[Cristiano viejo]

A province of Spain (Galicia) should have been Portuguese.

Are you retard, frog? it is the opposite, if any Portugal should belong to Galicia.

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Portugal and Denmark are two of the oldest nation-states in Europe, so it is difficult to understand the "younger-brother complex" premise when they are both older than their neighbors.

Nor do I understand the analogy of Portugal and Denmark invoking their past maritime empires. Don't Spain and Sweden do the same in their history books?

Italian and Spanish can give the impression that they sound alike but assuming that they are closer or more intelligible than Portuguese is obviously untrue. Educated speakers of both Portuguese and Spanish can communicate easily with one another, each speaking in his own language if they have a minimum amount of exposure to the language. The main reason why mainland Spaniards can often struggle with Portuguese is because they are generally more inward looking and tend to be less exposed to foreign languages such as Portuguese. In comparison, Spanish speakers in South America usually find it easier to understand Portuguese than Spaniards, perhaps because they have more exposure to the Portuguese language due to Brazil, which is South America's most influential state.

[LittleDarkAge]

Educated speakers of both Portuguese and Spanish can communicate easily with one another, each speaking in his own language if they have a minimum amount of exposure to the language. The main reason why mainland Spaniards can often struggle with Portuguese is because they are generally more inward looking and tend to be less exposed to foreign languages such as Portuguese. In comparison, Spanish speakers in South America usually find it easier to understand Portuguese than Spaniards, perhaps because they have more exposure with Brazil, which is South America's most influential state.

I agree.

[Dunai]

I would also bring up that both countries have developed very exemplary social policies, in taking care of their citizens, on a level that most humans can only dream about. As a Social Democrat myself I always love to bring up the Portuguese model as a way-to-go system, as an alternative to the much more popular and well known Nordic model. Not saying either models are anywhere near ideal, since free market Capitalism still has a tight grip on all these countries' economy, but at least they do take better care of their lesser fortunate citizens than other countries do.

[Andullero]

In comparison, Spanish speakers in South America usually find it easier to understand Portuguese than Spaniards, perhaps because they have more exposure to the Portuguese language due to Brazil, which is South America's most influential state.

This is my experience as well. When I was over there in Brazil, I had an easier time communicating in Spanish with the locals rather than in English, although this was more in Rio and Sao Paulo, cuz people in Brasilia seem not to have that much knowledge of foreign languages.

[Damião de Góis]

Are you retard, frog? it is the opposite, if any Portugal should belong to Galicia.

The county that became independent seceded from Leon. I don't think there was any relation with Galicia which i think was a vassal of Leon as well?

Nor do I understand the analogy of Portugal and Denmark invoking their past maritime empires. Don't Spain and Sweden do the same in their history books?

Sweden and Denmark had empires?

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Sweden and Denmark had empires?

They were not "huge" as the OP mentioned (especially if you exclude Greenland and compare it to early modern period empires such as the Portuguese Empire) but yes, they had.