Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
... but you couldn't say that the average Canadian could move to Arkansas and easily blend in with no lifestyle change required, and I don't think it's a given that language trumps all and Toronto is culturally more akin to any southern US town than Montreal.
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More or less. Someone from downtown St. Petersburg would more easily blend in / adapt in rural Siberia than in downtown Stockholm, and someone from Tokyo would more easily blend in /adapt in a remote Japanese fishing village than in Seoul, and it would be 100% due to linguistic considerations.
I recall when reading some American tourist guide about Europe and was surprised that it said Britain was "often thought of as less exotic", and I realized that up to that point it had always seemed obvious that France was the not-exotic European country, I had just never stopped to consider why.
A place operating in a foreign language vs a place operating in your language, that's not just a minor factor. It makes a HUGE difference.
The average unilingual Anglo would feel more at home anywhere in Arkansas than in a fully francophone area of rural Quebec. Literally nothing feels LESS like home than having everyone speak, and all written stuff written, in a language you don't understand.