Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
I think the biggest reason why the nations of the middle East and central Asia do not follow ethnolinguisic lines is because, as Ty pointed out, Europeans drew the lines. But as you point out the languages were spread over a much larger areas and it is much easier to create a small ehthnically homogeneous state.
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Did boundaries in these areas follow ethno-linguistic lines before the Europeans came? I can't speak to India or East Asia with any authority, but in the Middle East I think the answer is sometimes, but probably not most of the time.
And remember, outside of Algeria and Israel, the Europeans never really settled anywhere in the Middle East; their influence on lines was really from the outside.
