The distance from Atlanta to LA is about the same as the distance between Paris and Beirut. There is somewhat less linguistic diversity on the Altanta/LA route than the Paris/Beirut route (because of the genocide).

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's actually significantly more but you'd have to stop ignoring indigenous languages. Look, all those different families whereas from Paris to Beirut it's Indo-European over Turkic to Semitic, that's all (assuming you manage to avoid Hungary, that's Uralic, just like Finns, Sami and and Estonians. Then there's the Basques, but that's really it. Yes Albanian is Indo-European even if it's hardly recognisable).

[–] WackyTabbacy42069@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago

Of those languages, the population is very small and centralized to the point of being not noteworthy as a factor in language learning. This is not to mention that the map you've cited was a pre-contact linguistic graph, and unfortunately many of those languages have become extinct with their unique aspects lost forever to humanity. Compared to Europe, the states have become a desert of language with few natural language learning opportunities outside of English and Spanish