Why did Brazilian Portuguese diverge from European Portuguese more than Latin American Spanish diverged from European Spanish? Is it for linguistic reasons or for historical regions? Did the Spanish look after more closely their empire or what? Or did more Spanish emigrate there recently?
Brazilian vs LA Spanish divergence
I have a theory: due to the extremely simple vowel system Spanish has the different Spanish dialects didn't evolve so much when compared for example with Brazilian Portuguese. Look at English as well, since it's a vowel-rich language like Portuguese, it's easy that people start pronouncing words differently, but in Spanish you only have /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, nothing more. With such a poor vowel system it's difficult that divergence appears, at least as far as pronounciation is concerned. Spanish is the first European language that spread to America yet it's the most conservative, so there must be a inner tendency in the language that prevents divergence.
Yes, and the majority of the differences that do exist in Spanish is vocabulary. Each country has its own set of unique vocabulary and has alternative local meanings for other words which are found in many countries. On the other hand, pronunciation is not very different.
It has to do with the fact that Tupy-Guarany was the language of Brazil untill the end of 18th century when it was banned by Portuguese ruler, but it was too late for the spoken language: spoken language has mixed too much with Indian languages (forming Língua geral, a General language)...After imposing Portuguese as the only language of Brazil, the spoken language (a língua geral) was heavily Africanized. While, the written formal language in Brazil remained closely tied with Continental Portuguese, the spoken language has had its own and separate development (like in Switzerland, the formal German is close to written Germany's German, but the spoken language is completely different). Spanish ruler's opened universities in Spanish America to enforce the education and teach the Spanish language (Santo Domingo, 1st university, Lima 2nd university), so the language was always closely related to Spain. 1st universities in Brazil were opened very late, only when Brazil got its independence, but the language had already gone to far: imposing the Lisbon-based grammar on Brazilian speakers was far-fetched, that's why today's Brazilian newspaper may resemble Continental Portuguese, but it's very different from the spoken Brazilian Portuguese (just like in the case of Swiss German). Furthermore, all Hispanophone countries are subject to Madrid Academia...in Brazil, Academia Brasileira de Letras was founded to copy Parisienne Acedemia and not Lisbon Academia. I've never come across a grammar of spoken ''Mexican Spanish'' or spoken ''Argentinian Spanish'' because the differences in syntax are minimal, yet there are numerous books on ''Spoken Brazilian Portuguese grammar'' or ''The syntax of spoken Brazilian Portuguese''.
<<Furthermore, all Hispanophone countries are subject to Madrid Academia.>>
Not at all. Each Hispanic country has its own Academia that works in collaboration with the Spanish one and the rest of the American Academiae but they are not subject to the Spanish Ademia. They work together and thus those words that are used in America are recognized by the Spanish Academia and vice-versa.
Not at all. Each Hispanic country has its own Academia that works in collaboration with the Spanish one and the rest of the American Academiae but they are not subject to the Spanish Ademia. They work together and thus those words that are used in America are recognized by the Spanish Academia and vice-versa.