jbe, RE: Asian language diversity
I doubt that Europe (or anyone else) could learn very much from Asian experience with multilingualism, which, IMO, has been an almost universal disaster. The widely held delusion that Chinese share a single language is merely nationalistic propaganda. China expanded by conquest of neighbor peoples -- sometimes of the same language families (such as the Southern Chinese (Guangdong)) and sometimes not (Manchurian & Uigur). Those who still speak "regional dialects" such as Wu, Cantonese, Fujien, etc.) actually speak other languages, although they all write "Chinese" with the same characters -- they just pronounce them differently (i.e. speak a different language). Northern Chinese imperialism has been linguistic genocide.
Of course, Japan is not all that different. As Meiji nationalization of formerly provincial han daimyo governments proceeded, many local dialects disappeared as all kids were required to learn Tokyo. Even today there are plenty of (especially older rural and town Japanese, especially in the Southwest, who speak languages incomprehensible to more "educated" Japanese. Japan's suppression of Okinawan is well known. As Japanese expanded northward in the last century they classified Ainu as Japanese or Ainu depending on their occupations -- rice farmers being classified as Japanese and hunters and fishermen as Ainu. Japanese attempts to suppress Korean among those people who were kidnapped during the occupation are also well known.
I will omit reference to Javanese (BAHASA INDONESIA) imperialism and conquest in Indonesia (along with suppression of Chinese), Tagalog nationalism in Philippines (check with Visayans among others), suppression of Chinese and Malay in Thailand, and Hindi linguistic imperialism in India. The split in Pakistan was not only ethnic but linguistic, with Urdu-Bengali conflict important.
It is an unfortunate fact that pronunciation is the most important marker of ethnicity. To create a single national language is inevitably to destroy tribal and regional loyalties. Check the Bible out on the pronunciation of shibboleth. Your life can depend on your pronunciation of a single consonant. I'm sure that Andrew Jackson sounded like an ignorant redneck, and that annoyed "the Eastern elite (who sounded I imagine like bigoted puritan preachers), and the "Southern aristocracy" (who tried to sound like they imagined George Washington sounded.)
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