Wikipedia (both in English and in Portuguese) mentions that there are dialects of Portuguese in parts of Trás-os-Montes that still maintain a distinction, and [this citation](https://www.academia.edu/38544292/Sibilant_sound_change_in_the_history_of_Portuguese_An_information_theoretic_approach) (p. 507, fn. 4) seems to corroborate it. (Note: this does not mean pronouncing *coser* like *cojer*, there’s a three-way split there!)
When I try to listen for it myself, I struggle to, either because the recording is not good enough, or the speakers are elderly and don’t speak clearly, or I can’t tell if a speaker is a born-and-bred local or not, or just because I don’t speak the language well enough, or any other number of reasons. So, I want to ask you: is this still a thing, even among young speakers? Can you hear people make this distinction where you live?
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“Cozer” means boiling food, “coser” means sewing cloths. There’s no difference in the sound that I’m aware. Neither in passo or paço.
Yes, it’s still a thing. No so hardcore as in the past but still widespread around that area. A beautiful accent.
Correct. In transmontano there is a phonetic difference between *s* and *z*, when it in the middle or at the end of a word (eg. noz vs. nós). And many other phonetic and lexical particularities.
Not just in Trás os montes, but in good Portuguese, there is a pretty huge difference between “passo” and “paço”.
“Passo” is a step, or the act of passing something to someone else.
“Paço” is a palatial home, normally associated with nobility.