>>>>Well, portuguese have been around there for a long time (see http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/portam/cabrilho.html - what would you know, this is under the "Hispanic Division"!).
>>>>
>>>Interesting and so typical of history!
>>>
>>>“On September 28, 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo landed at San Diego Bay”.
>>>
>>>I enjoyed the spelling of his name in the reference you gave me - João Rodrigues Cabrilho. As is so typical of history things become distorted. I would like to know why we were taught the Castellano spelling? He is a very famous person in California History. We even have streets named after him - with the Castellano spelling.
>>
>>To be honest, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo is closer to ancient portuguese spelling: in 17th-18th century portuguese (I'm not at ease with previous periods) the most common spelling would be something like Joam Rodriguez Cabrillo. The use of the tilde to nasalize phonemes is a modern solution.
>
>Could there have been a less clear separation between Spanish and Portuguese back then? Was there greater use of dialects that were somewhere in between, such as Galician?
>
>I looked at a Galician dictionary in a bookstore and couldn't decide how different it looked from Spanish or Portuguese, especially since I don't know either. To me the spelling of the words looked more like Spanish, which makes sense since Galicia is in Spain.

Bret;

Historically, Galicia in northern Spain, is the land from which Celtic Tribes migrated to Ireland. So the Irish are really Spanish! Bagpipes are still used today in Glacian Folk music. If you want to upset a Scot, tell him he is Irish – he is. The Scots are one of the five Irish tribes.

Tom