What If Asian Countries Were Divided By Language?
Vložit
- čas přidán 13. 05. 2024
- Thank you to Wondrium for sponsoring today's video! Signup for your FREE trial to Wondrium here: ow.ly/1m9T50Mf3fl
▶ Support me on Patreon & get exclusive / ahead of time content! / generalknowledge
▶ In this video I talk about languages in the continent of Asia. By asking the hypothetical question 'What if Asia was divided by language?' I try to go through each linguistic area, attempting to understand which the main languages spoken in each region of Asia are. Through this view, we can understand how specific languages aren't confined to the political borders we know today. With many countries having various languages spoken within them. And many others sharing the same language, or at least language family. In addition to languages and cultures that are not a main element of any country, such as Kurdish. If the map was redrawn based on linguistic differences, we would see many countries break apart, others unite, and new nations emerge (such as Kurdistan).
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:41 What If Asia Was Divided By Language?
02:27 Wondrium
03:29 Middle-East/Arabic Region
04:59 Turkic Speaking Countries
05:49 Russia's Internal Languages
06:36 Pakistan
06:52 India
07:14 Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet
07:27 Mongolia & Mongolic Languages
07:53 China & Taiwan's Languages
08:21 Burma/Myanmar
08:39 Thailand & Laos (Kra-Dai Family)
08:51 Vietnam & Cambodia (Austroasiatic)
09:19 Korean & Japanese
09:43 Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines (Austronesian)
10:32 Summary
▶ Follow me on Twitter: / gkonyoutube
▶ Join the Discord Server: / discord
▶ Business Contact: gilfamc@gmail.com
▶ Thanks for watching, remember to subscribe to catch future videos!
![44 LANGUAGES of ASIA [part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yMUE3xKjVVc/mqdefault.jpg)
*Are there any main languages I missed?*
bro you missed dragon language, mostly spoken in Tibet ocean
No you didn't
But some are upset that you mentioned one specific language......
Thanks for adding kurdish!
Sound of cring turks 😋
Your Map is not consistent, it divides Chinese into northern and southern branches, while Tibetan which for all intents and purposes is three different languages with a common writing system is not divided as such.
Spanish has presence in the Philipines
In India, state borders are largely drawn linguistically and I think it's one of the smartest things it did as a modern nation. Unlike drawing borders based on religion or perceived ethnic identity, language connects people and no war has ever been fought over language alone.
Unfortunately
The division is still not great
Because my state is the youngest formed in India called Telangana we share language with another but not same culturally
Language division is not right in a place like India
In some areas people want separate state for speaking a different language in a state where another language is dominant but people are different culturally
In some places people want separate state because they are different culturally though they speak same language like in our case
@@dv9239 but look at the rest of the world, currently and throughout history, and imagine how much worse it would he if the states were determined by religious majority and how bad it would be if each state's religious majority had free reign to suppress the religious minorities. It's not perfect as it is, but it could be a lot worse. Look at everywhere else that the British drew the borders and they've stayed the same ever since. India made a smart move changing the internal borders.
Jason Bitkower is right. Even when Telangana split from Andhra, there wasn’t even a major riot or conflict that happened before or after. It was borne out of political and even cultural identity. Telangana, for centuries, was invaded more by Muslims and was part of several empires Andhra wasn’t. Same applies vice versa, like the Vijayanagara Empire.
India made a smart decision on linguistic division and any inter-state issues have been resolved peacefully and efficiently.
bruh Bangladesh fought Pakistan for independence for language alone, the Bengali mother language movement started in 1952 under East Pakistan and later lead to the liberation war. The primary reason for the war was being able to speak and write in Bengali.
Bangladesh liberation war was fought because of language. Because Pakistan government wanted to impose urdu on Bengali speaking nation.
It would be interesting to see how these line up with natural borders like mountain ranges, river basins, deserts ect.
Good point! Those make sense as a natural divide for language use
I mean, you just have to look at Southeast Asia and Tibet
Like you can see in Austroasiatic, Vietic (Vietnamese + Muong) and Khmer are all in the lowlands, while Bahnaric, Katuic, and Khmuic are all relegated to the highlands
Same with the Palaungics, Pakanics, Aslian, etc
In Myanmar, the lowlands are dominated by the Burmese (though the delta used to be dominated by the Mon of the Austroasiatic language family), and other languages like Shan, Karen, Wa, Palaung, Kachin, etc, are stuck in the mountains
In the Kra-Dai family, Thai and Lao are in the lowlands and basically every other Kra-Dai language such as the Tay languages, the Zhuang, etc are in the highlands
The Caucasus Mountains are one of the most diverse places in the world, all because the mountains isolated people for long enough to develop new languages
Indonesia has literally hundreds or even thousands of distinct languages because its geography divided them in a way similar to the Caucasus. There is the Acehnese, Javanese, Sunda, Malay, Balinese, and even some non-Austronesian languages such as the Halmaheran languages
I will not be listing off example languages for the Annamite, Burmese, and Himalayan mountains, because I would have a seizure. But examples of language families in the area would include Austroasiatic (Palaung), Kra-Dai (Shan), Austronesian (Jarai), Sino-Tibetan (Karen), Indo-European (Nepalese), and probably some that I am forgetting
@@socialistrepublicofvietnam1500 Thank you!
@@socialistrepublicofvietnam1500 Lover of languages, history, and the world here. Joking about seizures is as funny as getting run over by a truck. If you don't have them, it's not funny. If you've ever really had to help people survive serious seizures, it's not amusing at all.
If you continue to joke about seizures, may you have one at the worst, most perilous moment.
@@beadingbusily joking about getting running over by a truck is not the best comparison to make, seeing as i am currently laughing at that too. but i do see your point about insensitivity and agree that seizures shouldnt be taken lightly
I am still fascinated how Madagascar, which is so far away from Southeast Asia, shares the same language family, the Austronesian languages.
Those damn Borneans venture so far away lol
FREE TIBET
FREE HONG KONG
FREE UIGHER
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
genetically many of them are southeast asian as well.
@@dauf69 actually, the DNA is closer to the Sumatrans.
@@arthurmorgan2887 I mean, Sumatrans are in the same group with Borneans.
If you group Austronesian speaking people, it’s…
-Philippines, Taiwan (Ami & Yami), Indonesia (Minahasa, Gorontalo, North Sulawesi), Malaysia (Kinabalu)
-Malay Language (Majority of Indonesia and Malaysia)
-Malaysia (Borneo), Indonesia (Sumatra)
-Indonesia (Areas near East Timor)
-Pacific Islanders [Polynesia] [Micronesia] [Melanesia]
Regarding your map of China, it's not a map of the languages spoken. Instead the map shows the names of the provinces. Also, "Southern Chinese" is not a language. There are some very distinct languages. Hokkien (Min dialectal group) preserves elements of Old Chinese while Cantonese is a derivative of Middle Chinese as is Hakka and Shanghainese (Wu dialectal group). There is extreme diversity and variation in this part of China because it's not so easy to get around when compared to the North where Mandarin is mainly spoken. All this being said, inspite of the variety of Chinese languages, the use of a non-phonetic/visual approach to writing allows different Chinese groups to communicate without necessarily knowing how words were pronounced in different Chinese languages.
@@nitaseely6830那你到底是怎麼看到這影片了
FREE TIBET
FREE HONG KONG
FREE UIGHER
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
@@anglohan5428 什么臭傻逼，急死你算了。
Come and get it or forget about it.
@@anglohan5428 but HongKongese speak Chinese, it's just a port
Turkic languages are very similar on the whole, except for the highly divergent Chuvash language of the Volga region of Russia . I would say they differ less on the whole than say, the Germanic languages . They certainly aren’t all mutually intelligible, but it’s still quite easy for speakers of the different Turkic languages to learn one of those which are not immediately intelligible .
For example, there’s probably less difference between the Uighur language and the Turkish of Turkey than between German and Danish despite the fact that German and Danish are geographically right next to each other and Turkish and Uighur are geographically very distant .
@@ReekyCheeks ermeni
@@ReekyCheeks I don't see how Turkey using Turkish as its main language has anything to do with what they said. Doesn't matter though because it is legal to speak Kurdish in public.
@@ReekyCheeks even street signs are in kurdish in cities like diyarbakır tf are you talking about. if you speak kurdish in public nothing happens. kurdish was banned between 1980-1991. not anymore.
@@ReekyCheeks u guys are so fkn cringe to shit on a country that u never been to, nothing happens.
@@israilkolas5853 11 years bruh
In India, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were initially one state. That's why they both speak Telugu. They split in 2014 to form separate states due to management, political and other socio-economic reasons.
Don't forget socio-cultural reasons
@@didd2810socio-cultural reasons didn’t do much conflict in this case.
If Telengana deserve to be a separate state then Gorkhaland is also justified!
@@charithreddy23 You can go Nepal and make Gorkhaland for the Nepali people there.
@@saptarsheepaul1705 what am I supposed to do with it 🗿
Indonesian/Bahasa Indonesia is a National Language created solely for unifying Indonesia post Independence (1945). It is a 2nd/3rd language for most Indonesians.
Take an example, Sundanese spoken by people from West Java is not mutually intelligible with Javanese spoken by people from Central Java. But both can understand each other using Bahasa Indonesia.
Indonesia in fact has the most number of languages in the world, only behind Papua New Guinea. There are approx 700 different languages (not dialects) currently exist in the country.
If it’s still BEHIND Papua New Guniea then Indonesia ain’t the country with the MOST number of languages, silly overproud people
@@daffa9488 LOL .... Sir, I suggest you to watch more movies or news in English so you won't make any more stvpid comment in the future.
its older than that. Indonesian Bahasa exist at least since Sumpah Pemuda in 1928.
@@daffa9488 half of Papua is literally in Indonesia tho 🤷♂️
*_BHINNEKA TUNGGAL IKA!!!_*
🇮🇩❤️🇮🇩
When you were prefacing it with how the you would group the languages, I was so sure you were gonna miss the nuance over in the Philippines where I won’t be able to understand anyone from just a few kilometers north and the next island south. But you captured that so well! Colonial era education taught us that those were just dialects, but all the anthropologists are trying to correct that thinking and telling us that we do speak completely different languages.
Agreed. I found it a bit weird as he talk quite a lot about how India and Pakistan should be separated yet mention only a little about countries like Philippines and Indonesia which also had a lot of language on their own. Still, for someone completely unknown to Asian language, this video is a great introduction.
@@voralles1911 the main problem is the literature being immature. For example, the Bicol language is scholarly divided into dialects, but some of the dialects are non-mutually intelligible, though some may have similar sentence construction, etc.
For example, someone from Camarines Norte (which has a bicol speaking and tagalog speaking area, unlike what is shown in the map). A person from CN would understand someone from Naga (province next door in Camarines Sur), Legazpi (1 province away in Albay, and some parts of Sorsogon (The literal end of the bicol peninsula mainland) and maybe someone from the island provinces off the mainland.
The very same person who can understand those people even though geographically separated would barely understand someone from the Rinconada area in Camarines Sur, the province next door that Naga is also a part of. Fun fact, even in the same province, Rinconada won't be understood by most people not from the Rinconada area. The only reason someone from outside the Rinconada area would understand it is through being exposed to Rinconada language and culture. Another fun fact, Rinconada is sometimes more similar to Visayan and Malay languages in general. As far as I know, the major reason it's classified as a bicol dialect is the fact that it's a language within Bicol and is very to use and understand as long as you know the translation from other bicol languages (almost if not the same grammar, sentence construction, etc), the words are just almost completely different. For something to be a dialect, it has to be a certain amount mutually intelligible while also being very similar in many aspects, but Rinconada is like literally a different language when spoken to other native Bicol speakers, and is apparently more closely related to the oldest versions of Bicol (Proto-bicol) than other Bicol "dialects".
After that lengthy discussion, it has to be pointed out that there's is like 2-3 major literature's that try to group and study the bicol languages, and they all disagree on so many things. When there is barely any references and the small amount of references even try to contradict and refute each other's claims, you can barely discuss or create an appropriate consensus unless you go and conduct your own field study.
As Indonesian myself i feel what you feel. People in Indonesia and SEA in general tend to confuse when it come to separate between Leanguage, Dialect and Accent. For example Malaysian still think that all language in Indonesia is just Malay dialect even when it doesn't have the same root with Malay like Papuan for example.
@@xtsgaming8518 dai ko aram ini!
@@xtsgaming8518 napansin ko sa wika ng Naga, halo ang salita: may tagalog, at visayan. kakalipat ko pa lang naman haha
Language is 1 factor, maybe the most important. But history and community of interest are also important. If you had a pocket of speakers located a long way away from the main group they would have many differences from the main group apart from language.
That's true! I'm curious if that's the case with those remote German communities in Russia?
Its amazing those still exist in large numbers after multiple attempts to get rid of them
@@General.Knowledge we'd love to reunite with them :(
Technically speaking the entirety of Japan, Korea, Singapore, and parts of malaysia, vietnam, indonesia and burma are all former ‘pockets’ of Chinese speakers. So you can pretty clearly see the differences
FREE TIBET
FREE HONG KONG
FREE UIGHER
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
Indian states were drawn on a linguistic basis
Which is the reason why almost every has its own language
Also the the states which seem like they just speak Hindi have their own dialects
Only a fraction were drawn on language. Majority's borders are either politically convenient or the same from the British era. This is why so many Indian states have Hindi as their official language even though their languages are almost always entirely different from Hindi and is not their mother tongues.
@@didd2810 Excepting the cow belt states where the borders were drafted out of political convenience, most other state borders were drawn with the linguistic groups in mind
They were formerly the borders of warring feudal empires
@@didd2810 The states which have Hindi as an official language have their own dialects
@@lamewater772 those cow belt are themselves the biggest proportion of land and people in India
10:10 Indonesian, Malay, and Filipino have a lot of similarities. We don't talk just Tagalog and basic Malay, but other languages around also have many similarities. For example, Javanese and Ilokano. There are many similarities among its words.
the most closest language in the Philippines to the Malay would be Tausug, Maguindanaon and Meranao... Tagalog and bisaya is already swamped with Spanish words that only very few words would be understandable to a native malay speaker...
@@justsomehaatonpassingby4488 Yes. You're right 👍🏻
@@justsomehaatonpassingby4488 You do realize the majority of Tagalog vocabulary is still native Tagalog, right? Also, a lot of the prefixes and suffixes used in Tagalog verbs are similar to Malay prefixes, except that they're fossilized in Malay to not conjugate based on aspect, while Tagalog retains this extensively. It's not just "very few words," there are quite a few cognates between the languages.
@@romanr.301 If you compare Tagalog to Tausug, a Malay speaking person would understand Tausug than Tagalog, though it's true that the core Tagalog still has some semblance to the Malay language, but point is, Tagalog language has more Spanish (about 13% purely of Spanish origin, though if you include common words for daily concepts like numbers, prices, day, month or etc... You can get up to 40% Spanish depending on who you ask) than Malay (which Tagalog has about 10% of words), not to mention about the code switching between English, Tagalog and Spanish words that Filipino's use in speaking, which would make it harder for a Malay to really understand the language... As such the most closest language we have to the Malay Languages is the 3 afforementioned language
FREE TIBET
FREE HONG KONG
FREE UIGHER
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
General knowledge🖤♥️💚💜love your videos, you create lots of positive things. Thank you for creating this lovely content । So kind of you always, keep it up
Indonesian is the only standardized language which was born purely from artifical and conscious intervention to be adopted by all of Indonesians, unlike so many other countries where one special language was chosen as the official language without conscious modification.
Political intervention in standardizing the use of a certain language is common anywhere, in different extents. Just for small comparison example, people in negeri-negeri in current Malaysia used to speak different languages/dialects, some are very much different from modern standard Bahasa Malaysia. After the forming of Malaysia, Bahasa Melayu Riau-Johor was chosen to be used and developed as the standard Bahasa Melayu/Malaysia in the whole country. Just like the development of Bahasa Melayu Riau-Johor into Bahasa Indonesia that consider the existing languages and needs of Indonesians, the development of it into Bahasa Malaysia does the same respectively.
The whole grammar of Bahasa Indonesia feels insanely simple and artificial.
@@lutfiprayogi2 I think Bahasa Indonesia rooted from Bahasa Melayu Riau-Lingga, not Riau-Johor.
@@haha-nz8pw yeah I believe it’s more proper to say so, even tho Bahasa Melayu Riau-Lingga-Johor are pretty much similar.
@@haha-nz8pwRiau-Johor is also accurate because they were part of the same sultanate before the 1824 anglo-dutch treaty
Thank you for the interesting videos! I have watched them all with my family!
Nice bro
This is really fascinating! Loving this series!
excellent and different content..congratulations and good luck my friend
In Japan's case, it can also be divided into 4 linguistic regions. Ainu in Hokkaido, Japanese in Mainland Japan, Ogasawara Pidgin in the Ogasawara Islands and the Okinawan languages of Okinawa
Ainu has only like 20 native first-language speakers left at this point tho.
@@starborneolympus3907 Ainu people are native to not only Hokkaido but also other parts of Japan. Nevertheless, there aren't any left except Hokkaido. Those in Hokkaido also assimilated through racism, discrimination, etc. I wouldn't include them because they are on the verge of extinction.
@@starborneolympus3907 yes but even though they don't speak it, some 25,000 people identify as Ainu in Japan on the national census.
@@arienka5264 Irish was on the verge of extinction at one point. Look at it now, given its cultural revitalization. You could say the same about a lot of indigenous languages in Canada which amongst the First Nations are beginning to once again be spoken more and more. A language is only extinct if it is allowed to die. The consequences of not allowing that to happen are frankly vast.
@@K1ddkanuck though better but Irish is still in the ICU. More needs to be isn't?
FYI: In Indonesia we have 718 languages (The country with the second most spoken language in the world), it's not a dialect but it's a language. Each region in Indonesia has its own language, 1380 ethnic groups have their own language. The language is very different in each area, so it's like a foreign language that is impossible to understand. This regional language is used by Indonesians in everyday life, while our national language is the language used to speak to people from outside our regional area. It can be said that our national language is only a second language after our local language.
FREE TIBET
FREE HONG KONG
FREE UIGHER
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
Even Papua on its own has so many Languages, relative to its size!
yeah even like javanese has different accents & not all java share the same words & grammar
So if you take a random language out of those 718. You mean to say that someone with full knowledge of any of the other 717 languages will have no idea what the other is talking about?
@@Vincrand yes, some of it will sound similar, but you can't understand it, let alone making conversation.
fascinating. no wonder the other videos were so successful. i'm gonna have to look out for them...
Great video as always, keep up the good work, this channel is very interesting!
I genuinely love your videos. How about an African one? I'd love to see one of South Africa specifically as we have 11 official languages, but many of them being mutually intelligible. There would most probably be four. Nguni (Zulu, Sesotho, etc), Tsonga, Afrikaans and English.
You've got it slightly wrong. Nguni languages are Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi, Sotho languages are another group, including Sotho (South Sotho), Pedi (North Sotho) and Tswana (Once called West Sotho). Venda and Tsonga are in groups of their own - not mutually intelligible. English and Afrikaans are both Germanic, though not mutually intelligible. This, of course, is a massive oversimplification. The 11 languages are the standardised, literary forms. North Sotho, for example, is a collection of several languages, but the Pedi dialect is the literary standard.
Oh gosh, I remember growing up in the Philippines, whenever we travel and visit a different region and province where they speak another language, I have zero clue what they're talking about. Same when there are family gatherings where people speak different languages and it's really impossible to understand each other, unless we spoke in Filipino to each other. Then when I studied French, it was amazing when I tried reading Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese that I could understand more with other language within the Romance family better than the languages within the language family of Philippine languages. It was eye opening lol
this is a great information and it gives me more knowledge about my neighboring countries.
This is why I hate it when people say "Asian Culture" or "European Culture", or even worse "African Culture".
Literally ignoring the mass diversity of these continents. I feel that Asia though, hits the worst. Many people say that "Asian culture" exists within only the confines of China, Korea and Japan, and that DEEPLY annoys the fuck out of me. I may not be "Asian", but god damn. That is IGNORANT.
Even their own people say this! And that is just... WHY?
Anything that is not in continental Europe is considered Asia
In the Philippines, we have 130 to 180 languages, depends on linguistic classification...
That's a lot wow
Always fascinates. I always thought Filipinos only spoke Tagalog till my one Filipino friend lectured me in detail about the scary amount of thr quite different languages and dialects on the islands when I ignorantly told him that they only had one language to deal with.
@@didd2810 If you said the country only has one language in the Philippines all the Tagalog and Bisaya speakers in the area will fight for supremacy 😂
I love Philippines 🤗💚
peenoise fried
Is it possible for you to provide links of the different maps you use in the description in your future videos? Would love to see that!
As language is a major component in our ability to participate in our world, it’s one of the best signifiers for borders (if borders are truly needed) I can think of.
Great video ❤
Very interesting video, congrats.
The partition of the Indian subcontinent was tragic for the Punjabi and Bengali speaking people, where communities were divided through a random line, drawn by an aloof Britisher in a fortnight in case of Punjab, based upon religion.
I guess this is the case for a lot of places in Africa and Asia. Many communities that should be together were split up, and vice versa too.
@@sakagonicdom You can’t compare Bengalis and Punjabis with those other examples. 1947 partition was a long standing nightmare for these two races. Millions of people became homeless, 3 millions Hindu and Sikh women were raped, many people were forcefully converted. If you see some of the Bengali and Punjabi movies related to partition, you won’t be able to stop your tears ! 😢😢 and same thing happened to Tamils in Srilanka. Frankly speaking you won’t be able to fathom the pain, unless your own house would have been burnt down! 😢😢😢 I feel pain when I write this comment.
@@General.Knowledge Mr GK - exodus of Bengali and Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs can only be compared with Holocaust by Hitler.
@@lifeboy1978 🤣🤣🤣
@@ryanmarlin2974 rude. Probably Hitler has resurrected into you ! Your name is Ryan Hitler.
I can tell how much work this took, not just to check how much sense it makes to group up related languages, but also to try not to annoy people too much haha
Very cool video thank you
About Language Families- You missed out Dravidian Languages. It has nearly 30cr speakers in the Southern Part of India. It has more speakers than some of the Language Families mentioned.
*him : mentioned how divided languange in philippines, mainland southeast asia, east asia, south asia, west asia, and central asia.
*also him : forgot to mention how divided language in indonesia
Sure in Indonesia we use bahasa Indonesia which similar to malay. but each local and each island have very different languages, it's not just dialect it's very very different to the point I can't understand
only Sumatran Malays and Kalimantan Malays are similar to Malaysia, people from Java Island, Sulawesi Island, Papua, are not similar
*_Agree!!!_*
people, especially the western tend to brush off local languange as "dialect" when the difference could be more than Dutch and Germany, or Portugese and Spain. Which on my ears sounds relatively the same, share some words, but they said it's different languange. Idk where the line draw. Good luck learning Sundanese and trying to speak to Batak people thinking they were mere dialect of "Indonesian"
@@Kane_2001 Jakarta or the Betawi tribe also uses the Malay language because they are a new ethnic group that mixes from various tribes in Indonesia
@@Kane_2001 Javanese and Sundanese speaks the form of language in the same group as Malay language: Western Austro-Polynesian. The only language groups that different from the rest of archipelago are Melanesian group: from Papua, some parts of Maluku and Eastern Sunda Islands.
Ffs, I really despise the fact that we're always trying to divide each other just because of Dutch and British colonized different parts of our country.
Currently learning japanese and noticed many dialects are referred to by their location of former provinces.
Friend of mine from Aichi region likely speaks with an east Mikawa accent. Don't know the differences enough to distinguish anything but Kanto, Kansai and Hokkaido.
Recently started to learn tagalog, bisaya and cebuano as well, besides that, tutor has told me the Philippines has some 180 recognized languages (Not just dialects!). From what I understand tagalog is the main language taught throughout the Philippines, but locally at least from Cebu to Davao and many regions in between speak cebuano or bisaya.
Accents and dialects can vary greatly even in a tiny nation like the Netherlands, where I'm from, there's a clear distinct sound and way of speaking between the even tinier provinces and often even differ within those provinces.
Languages are useful not only because they are interesting, and get you around, if you learn it proper you can catch locals who pretend friendly and cordial in your face yet talk shit behind your back.
You kinda grouped Korean and Japan together but they are actually isolates and not genetically related (only through borrowings.). You left off the Ainu languages also. Also, Jeju dialect of Korean, is almost a language onto itself, and only nominally intelligible. North and South Korean have actually diverged a fair bit, albeit they still can communiate without too much difficulty.
It's actually so annoying when people brush off a language as dialects but on ground you cannot understand the other language even one bit by knowing only one of the two languages...right
@@aimy5637 As the famous quote goes, "the difference between a dialect and a language is an army". ha ha. What bugs me is the insistence of the PRC calling all the Sinitic (aka Chinese) languages as dialects even though they absolutely cannot understand each other (i.e., a Mandarin speaker absolutely cannot understand someone speaking Cantonese or Taiwanese Hoklo, etc.)
@@MichaelSidneyTimpson but they can write what they mean on a piece of paper and all will understand. This cannot be said for many others. And you'd be wrong to say speakers of different dialects can't understand each other. It's true to a certain extent but not exactly. Mandarin is the people's language and aspiring connector of the sinic world.
@@n.c9653 yes there is a lot of nuances...and opinions, I realize. I get my information from first-hand sources living in my home...my own family who are native speakers in Mandarin and Hoklo. At the same time, one could theorectically write Korean and Vietnamese in Chinese characters as well, but they are absolutely not Chinese languages, in fact, not even related (except for borrowings.). And I do know Korean and Chinese, so I know that directly.
@@MichaelSidneyTimpson no.. You cannot write Korean or Vietnamese in Chinese Characters (especially for Vietnamese). For Koream and Japanese, they did borrow many Chinese characters but The so-called dialects in China share almost exactly the same written characters, grammar and sentence structures.
🇵🇭 There are 182 distinctly different spoken languages in the Philippines, and among those languages there are different dialects depending on the province. There are 11 “main” languages with more than 5 million speakers for each language. The lingua franca Filipino is based on Tagalog, which is the language spoken in the capital in Metro Manila. English is the mode of instruction from the first level to beyond PhDs. Laws are written in English. Code-switching comes naturally to Filipinos and are natural polyglots, speaking between 1-4 Filipino languages, as well as English. One of the reasons why Filipinos are so westernized is because Filipinos consume a lot of american media, and in the recent decade, kdramas and kpop. Most Manileños think and speak in Tag-lish ( a mixture of tagalog and english), most Cebuanos think and speak in Bis-lish (a mixture of Bisaya and English) and most Davaoeños think and speak in both Taglish and Bislish. There are 7641 islands in the Philippines, so geographically and culturally speaking, there was little hope of becoming cohesive or homogenous, which is why the Spanish had a very firm hold on the country for 333 years, followed by the Americans and the Japanese occupations. It’s also funny that for all those years, only a handful of the population speak Chavacano, a Spanish Creole language in Zambuanga peninsula. Only 3% of the population actually have spanish blood, since only the filipino nobility, daughters of rajahs and datus were allowed to marry the spanish conquistadors. Genetically (53%), we are more related to indonesians and malaysians, and around 36% have some form of chinese ancestry.
how about the natives like negritos?
• Based on recent Archaeological findings (fossils/artifacts), prehistoric (Kalinga) people already existed and roamed the Luzon Islands for more than 700,000 years ago (or even much earlier than 2 million years ago). They already have their own language, culture and beliefs...🤔
• Austronesian migration (Formosan) migration: 60,000-70,000 years ago...🤔
• Afro-Asiatic (Black Pygmies) migration: 40,000-60,000 years ago...🤔
• Indo-Malayan migration: 4,000-6,000 years ago...🤔
• China, Indian, Arab and other Asian traders: 1,000-2,000 years ago...🤔
• Buddhism/Hinduism arrived in PH: 900 CE...🤔
• Islam arrived in PH: 1300 CE... (Islam was created in 610 CE)🤔
• Spanish/Portuguese explorer: 1521 CE...🤔
• Christianism: 1600s CE... (Judaism was created in 20th Century BCE and Christianism was created in 1st Century CE) 🤔
• British colonizer: 1700s CE...🤔
• Americans: 1899...🤔
• Japanese: 1941...🤔
If you already didn't know, in 1956, Indian states were redrawn based on linguistic boundaries. That's the reason the Indian map was so clearly demarked.
FREE TIBET
FREE HONG KONG
FREE UIGHER
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
Correction:The people of noth eastern state of indian (Tripura) speak kokborok( which means people's language)
Very true. Tagalog and Indonesian sound so similar phonetically when you hear it spoken, but I totally don't understand what my Indonesian friends say when they talk and vice versa.
4:48 Correction: not „a bit“ of the people speak Pashto in Afghanistan, in fact even though Dari Persian is the lingua franca there, Pashtuns are the majority ethnic group and have therefore the most number of speakers in the country !
This is true!
Yes Dari is only used to communicate with non-Pashtuns there
Pashtuns does not = Pashto-speaking people exclusively. You are confusing an ethnic group with a language. Dari-speaking people are also Pashtuns, who make up the majority of the ethnic group in Afghanistan. Similarly, other ethnic groups (Tajik, Hazara or Uzbeks) can speak Pashto.
@@didd2810 This is completely false.
@@Zabi-S dari is only a lingua franca in Afghanistan. It's not a native tongue. The fact that Pakistani Pashtuns do not know Dari properly is proof of this.
Now do a video on what Africa would look like with each language or tribe being its own country.
North Africa is probably going to be a big country
Could you do this video with countries in/around the Pacific?
3:34 This linguistic map is actually made from Columbia University professor Michael Izady. He has a website with other maps like this.
It's clear he is Iranian lol, since he disregards also l the different Arabic dialects and downplays the amount of Arabic speakers in the Persian gulf side of Iran.
What I feel cool about Asiatic languages is that not only are there a lot of them…but most have got their own Writing Scripts as well! Such as…
🇮🇳 हिन्दी
🇧🇩 বাংলা
🇮🇳 తెలుగు
🇮🇳 தமிழ்
🇮🇳 ગુજરાતી
🇵🇰 اُردُو
🇮🇳 ಕನ್ನಡ
🇮🇳 ଓଡିଆ
🇮🇳 മലയാളം
🇮🇳 ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
🇧🇹 ལྷ་སའི་སྐད་
🇱🇰 සිංහල
🇲🇲 မြန်မာစကား
🇹🇭 ภาษาไทย
🇱🇦 ພາສາລາວ
🇰🇭 ភាសាខ្មែរ
…how many of these Asian Languages can you recognise? 😄
All of them! Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam, Punjabi, Dzongkha (Bhutanese), Sinhala, Burmese, Thai, Lao, Khmer
there are also scripts like these in maritime southeast asia but they are not common anymore
13
In Indonesia there are:
Javanese
Sundanese
Balinese
Bugis-Makassarese
Lampungnese
Bataknese
Rejangnese, etc
They are used in street's name tags
@@bcoveplmene9791 BANG GW ORANG INDO JUGA
nice job
Why does the thumbnail feature groupings in Iran and Pakistan much different than in the video? The featured language maps divided Pakistan into Indian and Iranian regions, and both Iran and Afghanistan had large non-Iranian regions.
The two main language family of Nepal are
Indo European and Sino Tibetan Burman.
Main language of Indo European in Nepal
Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Bajjika, Doteli, Urdu, Awadhi, Tharu.
Main language of Sino Tibetan Burman in Nepal
Magar, Tamang, Newari, Rai, Gurung, Limbu, Sherpa, Thakali
When Nepal better preserves and promotes languages like Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Bajjika, and others even though the country where these languages come from and where they have the most speakers (ie India) does not... Ironic!
@@didd2810 These languages are in india too but are classified as dialects of Hindi.
Assalamualaikum. I am an uzbek (karluk) speaker of Turkic language. And I understand easily Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uyghur, karakalpak, turkmen, Azeri, tatar and about 70% Turkish. Others that are situated in Russia (Siberian) are less than 50% ofc ig.
1 min ago uploaded nice
Please do the same for Africa next! :)
I speak Odia, one of classical languages of India.... ❤️❤️
Still not popular like punjabi Or bengali.. 😂
Amazing bro I speak Malayalam one of 6 classical language of our country
It'll be dead by the coming century since many Odias increasingly identify as Hindi speakers
You forgot “Newari” or what officially is Nepal Bhasha. Only Kathmandu valley was known as Nepal in pre modern times. What is now known as “Nepali” is used to be called Gorkha Bhasha. You can see this in institutions like Gorkha Bhasha Parashikni Samiti (Gorkha Language Publication Committee) or Gorkhapatra (Gorkha-Paper) the first printing press and the first newspaper in Nepal. If you are dividing by languages then “Newari” should get it’s own place because it is much older language than “Nepali”. There was not even a single written literature in “Nepali” until mid 19th century. While there have been “Newari” poets and writers since 14th century. Even the so called greatest poet of “Nepali” mostly plagiarised most of his writings form older “Newari” literature.
Don't tell this to ultra-Nepali territorial nationalists. They've dreams all across the Himalayas and you've limited their origins to merely the Kathmandu valley.
I wonder. If a new nation were carved out based on language group, and that nation were small enough to allow for a lot of interaction (ie, not the size of China), how long would it take before dialects drifted TOWARD each other, rather than away. I'm thinking of the loss of highly distinctive 'accents' in Britain in the generations following the advent of radio and television.
Imagine if every country were divided by languages
Nah, I don't want a massive english-speaking country. It's going to be annoying.
Would be hard to define since not all languages are considered as separate by people
This video omits an important factor. While it would be convenient if everyone in a country spoke the same language, people also communicate in writing so they would have to (eventually) use the same script for that language to maximize their communications. To take just one example, how many different scripts are used to write the Turkic languages? I have no idea but it's not hard to imagine a country where everyone spoke a roughly similar Turkic language but every street sign contained half a dozen (or more) written forms. Ultimately, these new countries would want to standardize both the standard spoken version of the language AND chose a single script for writing it. Politically, I think wise leaders would want to set a policy of adopting a standard spoken and written version of the language over a substantial period of time, say 50 years, or else they could probably expect significant tensions between users of the different dialects of the language. They would also need to make provisions for minorities who continued to speak/write other languages unless perhaps they expect to deport such people.
Under Mustafa Kemal, Turkey changed from Arabic script to Latin. One of the Central Asian countries, (possibly Kazakhstan?) is now changing their script from Cyrillic to Latin.
Trying to remember a world map with this model would be impossible lol
5:18 I agree with you regarding mutual intelligibility. But usually the most divergent words are the mostly used ones, as they are mostly used they are mostly changed.
Also I would like to see some group of words, otherwise I believe it's possible to find a common word for several languages.
And by the way the word "bear" in Turkmen language is written differently("aýy"), so not sure how trustworthy was your source.
I got questions about a maharastrian language today. It's a tribal language, of 70 families where only half of those speak it now.
There are so many endangered languages here and many already are lost.
8:29 I'd like to point out that many of the different languages of Myanmar aren't dialects of Burmese AT ALL. A fair few of them aren't mutually intelligible with Burmese, and some of them are straight out from a different family, having no connection to Burmese whatsoever. Examples include languages spoken by the Shan people, that belong to the same falily as Thai, and Mon, belongic to the same family as Khmer
Agree, some of them indeed share the same root with the Burmese language but not dialect of Burmese, like Chin or Karen for example. More like Germany and Austrian have the same roots but different language or Germany and Dutch.
And Some of them don't share the same root with Burmese at all like Shan and Mon who are more closer to Thai and Khmer respectively
Khmer and "Thai" aren't at all in a family group , the austroasiatic are the native to the mainland South East Asia however u could be right since "Thai" made up by alot ethics mostly Khmer and tai .
@@KdamSamout I'm not sure you understood what I said (although I myself didn't understand what you said either).
It didn't say that Khmer and Thai are part of a common language family - because they're not.
What I said was that some languages spoken in Myanmar, for example Mon, are part of the the same language family as Khmer (the Austroasiatic family), and some other languages spoken in Myanmar, for example the Shan languages, are part of the same family as Thaï, the (Tai-Kra-Dai family)
@@dragskcinnay3184 sure that's what I meant to clarify.
@@KdamSamout Alright, we're good then
Austronesian language family is very diverse. The closest to us Filipinos are the Yami and Ami of Taiwan, and some Indonesians & Malaysian groups.
If you group it…
-[Philippines, Taiwan (Ami & Yami), Indonesia (Minahasa, Gorontalo, North Sulawesi), Malaysia (Kinabalu)]
-[Majority of Indonesia and Malaysia] [Malaysia (Borneo), Indonesia (Sumatra)]
-Indonesia (Areas near East Timor)
-Pacific Islanders [Polynesia] [Micronesia] [Melanesia]
So when will there be the next video of the series?
Next could be “What if African Countries were divided by Language?”
Or “What if North American Countries were divided by Language?”
Or “What if Oceanian Countries were divided by Language?”
I’m hoping to see the next one of those videos posted in CZcams soon. 🙂
The Austronesian people really are marine people. They even reached the Island of Hawaii, Oceania, and Madagascar in Western Africa. If you're Indonesian, you might've heard a folk song that said "Nenek Moyang ku seorang pelaut" which translated into "My Ancestor are sealer ⛵"
You mean "sailer" not "sealer" sir
Bisaya and Cebuano are the same thing and these are languages, not dialects. Unless you're talking about Tanay-Paete Tagalog, Bulacan Tagalog, Marinduque Tagalog, ETC
Yes, i am from mindanao and I call my language colloquially as bisaya, but I know that cebuano is the academic term.
@@johnramirez3247 I'm from Mindanao too. My first language is Cebuano. People here also speak that language. But no one really calls it Cebuano, most people call Cebuano as Bisaya or Binisaya.
@@johnramirez3247 yes, and also, I really hate it when some Filipinos refer Cebuano (Bisaya) as a dialect.
@@arc7495 same
from linguistic vision some root meanings are protolanguage of Asia like GU RU RA SU MA TA DA RAH YI TAO DAO etc they become basic tomes in big asian cultures
In Philippines we have 180 + languages but sadly 6 of theme are gone with 175 ethnic groups
The status of Tungusic languages is just :(
As a turk I understand azerbaijanian turkish, a bit of turkmen,tatar, some uyghurian but the rest not really. Especially kazakh and krygys are hard to understand
How so?
What's the major difference between standard Turkish and Kazakh?
@@Sharif_iraqi The pronunciation and words that are cognates sometimes are similar but not similar enough. Often the same words are used differently. Turkish and kazakh are as similar as for example german and dutch or french and spanish
@@ElSemih that's not so similar is it?
Like what words?
It is very likely that current linguistic borders may not line up with current political boundaries, but they often reflect previous political boundaries.
I hope you are able to do one for Africa too. That would be really cool
I’m not sure why you grouped Korean and Japanese together and skipped explaining Japan all together. Korean and Japanese are completely unrelated and Japanese is most likely related to austronesian apart from being an isolate
Japanese is related to austronesian family, and Korean is related to Tungusic language family.😂However, due to the strong China culture, 70% of Japanese and Korean words come from Chinese.Bloodline, culture, architecture, religion and thought have all become the main body of China culture, while the local Shamanism culture and Shinto culture have become subcultures.😂
Japanese and Korean people hate China so much, but they keep promoting what they think is Japanese and Korean culture, but actually Chinese culture.🤣Koreans don't even publicize their national religion, Shamanism and culture at all.😂Shintoism and sex worship culture are only promoted on mythical occasions in Japan. Generally, the courtyards, tea ceremony, Zen, calligraphy, music and armor are all from China.😂
@@user-jj6mx3tc1g Why are you laughing-crying? It looks like you are mocking the other person when you do that
Maybe he still believes in the Altaic theory 😂 None the less Japonic and Austronesian hailed from the Yangtze civilization
😂😂😂 why are we laughing crying 😂😂?
Please make videos about:
What If African Countries Were Divided By Language?
What If North American Countries Were Divided By Language?
What If Oceania Countries Were Divided By Language?
i would've liked a uniform political map background for each, like uniform maps, and clearer geopolitical borders...
thank you - your videos are always interesting - but kindly make a better effort to get your pronunciations as close to the actual. Cheers
Fun fact the Philippines Indonesia and Malaysia was actually planning before to unite as one federation. But it fails since the countries has different political views and it's really hard to unite the nations since they had different colonizers. People believe that Filipinos Indonesians and Malaysians came in the same race. But the discovery of Austronesians debunk the theories. Also it is also the reason why South East Asian Nation was created because of this three countries first attempt to unite..
only Indonesia and Philippines actually, due to the same sense of islanders identity, but then Malaya/Malaysia illegally colonized northern Borneo which should be Indonesian and Philippines territory, the unification was failed due to these Malaya's illegal attempt of annexation (which then backed by the British). Sarawak and Sabah belongs to Indonesia and Philippines respectively.
STOP CALL US 🇮🇩🇲🇾🇧🇳 "ASIA" WE ARE "SOUTH THOUSEND ISLANDER" WE ARE NOT NARROW EYES Maybe VIETNAMESE In Categories Family of ASIA Because Close With China Border and They Are Culture Same Like : Eat With Copstick, Chinese New Year Etc
Do a video on if each native American nations maps. It would be cool to see the current nations borders plus the land they use to occupy pre-colonialism.
Actually, that would be depressing.
That would make me sad but I think it's a good idea, as a few people only are aware of how diverse the native American languages used to be and still are !
@@paulochon7692 even i who is a creek native American didn't understand there was much difference until i was a teen.
Please continue, by give information population, GDP, land area etc of "new country" after dived by language.
The Arabic dialects map is very simplified, in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Yemen there’s around 18 different dialects and probably more
I 100% agree with comment 148. Kurds are a Iranian/Persian tribe (historical Meads) and are even more Persian than Tajik or most of the Afghans. They are not native to the northern Iraq, Easter Turkey and definitely not Syria. In fact most of the area that they are occupying today was inhabited by Assyrians and Arminians less than 100 years ago.
you seriously counted the comments from the top? good on you.
Lol.. if you considered it like that, then turkey (turks) definitely not native to its own land.
@@zhiaryassen1634 yes Turks are largely Anatolians and Greek lmao
@@zhiaryassen1634 Turkic civilisations came from central Asia...
Zhiryassen your absolutely correct, in fact only 100 years ago Constantinople/todays Istanbul was a majority Greek city. Greek inhabitants were forced out if luck or killed by Turks during the world war. Additionally presence of Ottomans rule barely goes back to 1400s. Turkish people are very much related to Mongolians and share many of the similar linguistics and genetics and very much oriental. But when traveling and you look around you don’t see too many orientals but you noticed people that look Greek, Arminians and Assyrians. These people were given a choice Between conversion to Islam and giving up There heritage and speak Turkish or Die.
That’s todays Turkey and Azerbaijan reality.
1:29 is actually an exaggerated map
It's really not
It's actually more than that
The north khurasan and central Anatolia isn't on this map
Neredeyse Lazları da Kürt yapıyorlarmış. Kürtlerin doğum hızı Lazlara ve Türklere göre daha yüksek ama yine de Kürtlerin o bölgelerde o kadar çok olduğunu düşünmüyorum.
@@Sharif_iraqi yeah he is right north Khorasan majority kurdish population because of one king this migration happened nader shah afshar force kurmanj Kurdish people from zagros to north Khorasan
@@Sharif_iraqi EXCHANGE KURD POPULATİON İN TURKEY KURDS İS İRANİC.
@@Sharif_iraqi and what about Armenian lands that were snatched from them?
in fact there is a ±700 hundred local language in Indonesia. My hometown Province itself has a 4 Major culture that has their own local languages with many dialects. There is Makassar, Bugis, Toraja and Mandar. that 4 is somehow related but most of the vocabulary are different.
For example my culture is Makassar and Bugis are very closely related because of the history.
Men : Makassar = Burane | Bugis = Urane
but
Women : Makassar = Baine | Bugis = Makkunrai
Close but different
Also, Our national language is Indonesia, but because of this diversity the Indonesian language has many Dialect depend on the where the speakers comefrom, or what speaker's mother tongue.
For Example :
I walk to the market : Std. Indonesia = Saya pergi ke Pasar | Makassar ver. = pigika Ke pasar | Bugis : Pergika ke pasar
and they have their tone and accent so we can tell the people's come from based on the sound.
Great video, thanks! Your map of the countries India would split into looks a lot like the existing Indian states because Indian states were created on linguistic lines in the 1950s and 60s.
Only southern, western, eastern, north eastern. Northern and central are NOT.
ya. India didn't exist before 1947
In fact, Turkic-speaking peoples have played a major role in Iranian history, ruling the country from the eleventh century up to the early twentieth. Even today they represent more than a quarter of Iran's population.
Foltz, R. (2016) Iran in world history. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. p.61
Homa Katouzian, "Iranian history and politics", Published by Routledge, 2003. p. 128: "Indeed, since the formation of the Ghaznavids state in the tenth century until the fall of Qajars at the beginning of the twentieth century, most parts of the Iranian cultural regions were ruled by Turkic-speaking dynasties most of the time.
as i know even they are turkic speaking people rule over iran, you're not one of them i don't know why you proud something you have never been achieved that. and also some german royal families rule over major European countries but i never saw any random person in germany going to youtube comments say the bulshiet about some german rule over some counteries but turks from turkey always proud something they never achieve that.
@@ariyannikdell3085 TURKS AND İRAN EXCHANGES POPULATİON TÜRKİC AZERİ POPULATİON GO TO TURKEY KURDS GO TO İRAN.
Lol those Turkic only ruled because they assimilated in Iranian cultures.
I had no idea that the main language in Tajikistan wasn't Turkic. Maybe that is a contributing factor to the tensions with neighbouring Kyrgyzstan? They are less similar than I thought, at least.
They are not similar at all
Tajiks are Indo-Europeans.
@@LalaLa-ze7kv Yes, this was what I suddenly understood. That opens up for greater understanding of this region and was an eye-opener for me. In my ignorance, I just viewed Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as "the two small Central Asian former Soviet republics bordering China with a pre-dominantely Turkic population".
Yes Tajiks are an Iranic people. Kurds, Afghans, Balochis, Persians. All of them Iranic peoples.
Tajik shares a lot in common with Persian, it is Indo-Iranian, it can be groupef with Persian, Pashto and Dari
Malaysians speak around 3 languages, Chinese malay and english, malay is the main but i Feel like we speak mostly english sintetik its Easier to communicate? I am a malaysian by the way this was a opinion based on my observations.
demand for a nation on basis of language is the strongest & legitimate demand. if people residing in a region/country cannot communicate with each other, how do they become one nation ?
While Nepal does use Nepali as its Lingua Franca, if it were to be divided by languages it'd have 123 countries within the tiny nation itself.
Language families to make countries doesn't make sense in Southeast Asia. We can't even understand each other just within the Philippines.
7:00 as a punjabi, i can say that the language actually does creep quite a bit into neighbouring states including rajasthan and himachal xd
...And everyone lived happily ever after
Do Africa next
The thumbnail lists “Iranian/Pakistan”. I’m guessing you meant to write Persian.
In Indonesia, almost each island and province languages are different.
what is the language and the dialect difference?
Is altaic exist?
5:47 hahahaha, it is not "farsi and darsi", it is "farsi and dari"
So basically Armenia keeps its current territory + Artsakh & Javakhk.
In another reality it would have a territory for western Armenian language, which only barely survives in the diaspora today, but sadly even Armenia itself as a country struggles to survive...
Look at the Lachin corridor blockade for example... Thousands of people are dying of hunger right now and nobody does anything 😔
Personally, it was hard to really use modern maps to visually linguistic variants and not all of them have been well studied. These visualization maps are mostly just estimates.
Malay dialects itself have many diverse variants. Kelantanese and Terengganu dialect are similar to Southern Thailand for instance but not with Northern (Kedah and Penang) dialect. Southern Thai have a significant amount of Malay speakers as British and Thai divided the borders between the Northern Malay kingdom in the 19th century. Riau Malay which was used as standardized mostly influenced the Malay language spoken in southern Malay Peninsular (Johor and Singapore) and parts of Sumatra (Padang) have a slight Bugis and Javanese influence. And not accounting the indigenous languages within the regions that affect regional dialects, particularly in rural areas, East Malaysia and Kalimantan.
Uh... I doubt Minangkabau have Javanese influence....
There is not a large amount of intelligibility between all turkic languages, but many neighboring ones do, for example, Turkish, Azerbajian, and Turkmenistan have a good amount of intelligibility.
Ngl, division by language would make for much more sense and less conflict (if it was implemented in the first place of course), especially in Africa
I'm assuming you mean this for India in which case it is only true for a handful of states
@@didd2810 I rather meant Central Asia, the southeastern peninsula and Indonesia
Especially Iran, Pakistan and the former Soviet states make little to no sense in their division
About India, I personally wouldn't know if a division by language group, especially considering the Dravidian and Indo-European languages might make more sense.
Northern Indians are far better off economically, hold more influential positions and are the picture which gets represented to the world. Internal tensions, especially under the current, highly hindu-nationalistic government, keep on rising as minorities get ignored or pushed out of day-to-day affairs.
Myanmar is another case of "division through diversity"
Division by language would cause more conflict Africa, especially in the regions where there are multiple languages spoken. In Africa, the government language is usually a colonial one like English or French
@@cs0345 why though?
@@_MC529 Different language and ethnic groups often live in the same areas as each other and the boundaries of the ethnic groups are unclear, so you can't always just draw a line and say that one group should live here and another should live on the other side without a policy of ethnic cleansing, like what happened in India's partition. Not to mention there are thousands of ethnicities and languages spoken in Africa, so it wasn't viable to carve up Africa into so many smaller, weaker states