Just in Switzerland (which has only 8 million people) there are 4 official languages. Only 30k people speak Romansh, so let's ignore that one. But if you go to the German part, most people don't even understand French. Likewise, if you go to the French part, most people don't understand German. The Italian part is quite a bit smaller than rest of Switzerland, and most people there choose to learn French as a second language.
People from the north of Belgium don't speak the same language as people in the south of Belgium. The dialects of German spoken in the north vs. the south of Germany are so different that they struggle to understand each other. If you want an example of people speaking English, compare accents in Scotland or Wales to that of London, which is a melting pot of everything from Cockney to Received Pronunciation. Now, imagine what it is like in between countries.
Seriously, trying to say that the difference between the accents of Louisiana, Socal, New England and Chicago are a big deal, throw in the Mexican accent, hell even a good dollop of Spanish, it is still really homogeneous. Compared to Europe where there are places two hours drive away from you which share none of the languages you speak, and where you will find nobody who speaks any of the dominant languages in the area you currently are. And not just a village, or a suburb or cultural enclave, but whole cities of people.
It's absurd to use languages spoken as a proxy for cultural diversity. That being said, according to wikipedia there are 430 languages spoken in the US. There are 32 languages used by 100,000+ people.
And implying that simply because people speak the same language they have the same culture is nuts. People in Utah have the exact same language and accent as people in California but the two populations have very different attitudes about family, education, marriage, religion, and government.
In fact you don't even need to cross state boundaries. Compare Park City, Utah with St. George, Utah. Different cultures. Compare any metro area with any rural area.
You and salmon30salmon are missing the point. Language is an indicator of 4000+ years of local cultural differentiation. The rest of us europeans are just trying not to say something about 200years worth of adopting cultures. That does indeed create a unique multifaceted community, but surely you realise how much in common you have with most of the rest of the US population?
In Europe these language barriers correspond to sometimes dramatic changes in climate, environment and lifestyle. Finns have very little in common with Italians as far as weltanschauung or culture goes, for instance. I doubt you could find as drastic and systemic difference on your side.
(Just to clarify, I don't mean to imply EU>US, just underlining the difference's depths)
But the point is that the US is 100-200 years of homogenization veneer on cultures ranging from Asian to African to European to indingenous.
In that sense, the US has a broader base of those enclaves within the country and less time to have built a coherent cultural identity between those populations.
Europe, by contrast, hasn't forced the veneer over all of the enclaves (eg, single language), but the enclaves share a more similar historic background.
It's different kinds of diversity, really. Stable multi-components versus broader partial fusion.
Right, which is why I am _not_ saying that the EU is in any way homogeneous. What I am saying is that _neither_ the EU or the US are homogeneous. And the same treatment that is applied to the EU when claiming that a certain culture describes "Europe" needs to be applied to the US.
No, it is not comparable by any measure. If I move 30 km from my home to the South, I won't be able to understand people and the culture is totally different, the meal hours are shifted by two hours, the food is different, the work times are different, the social system is different, the wages are vastly different, the prices are different, the family organisation is totally different, the religion could be different.
Why? Because there is a bloody border in between. These are different countries, they have evolved separately for centuries. Don't you get it? Those are not two states of the United States of Europa, those are countries forged with a millennium of historical evolution.
People from the north of Belgium don't speak the same language as people in the south of Belgium. The dialects of German spoken in the north vs. the south of Germany are so different that they struggle to understand each other. If you want an example of people speaking English, compare accents in Scotland or Wales to that of London, which is a melting pot of everything from Cockney to Received Pronunciation. Now, imagine what it is like in between countries.
Seriously, trying to say that the difference between the accents of Louisiana, Socal, New England and Chicago are a big deal, throw in the Mexican accent, hell even a good dollop of Spanish, it is still really homogeneous. Compared to Europe where there are places two hours drive away from you which share none of the languages you speak, and where you will find nobody who speaks any of the dominant languages in the area you currently are. And not just a village, or a suburb or cultural enclave, but whole cities of people.