Most diverse or divided nation in Europe?

[Queequeg]

Reading The Prague Cemetery, it's kind of amazing how completely divided 19th Century Italy was.  I knew what it was like linguistically, but Simonini, the hilariously bigoted narrator, seems to view Savoyards as more French than Italian at some points, and views Sicilians as something close to apes, even if he develops an affection for (surprisingly red sauce free) Sicilian cuisine during his escapades in newly unified Italy.

What nations in Europe do you guys think are the most divided?  I'd say Italy is near the top, with Germany and Spain coming up there too.  Belgium is hardly a country, so I'm not sure that counts.  I don't know if France would be up there today thanks to the campaign against regional languages.  Conversely, the Slavic expansion happened at time when most of the Germanic and Romance languages were already somewhat established, so there's a lot less diversity, especially within the big linguistic divides.  Russians are surprisingly linguistically and culturally homogeneous in most respects, given how old and vast the country is. 

[Admiral Yi]

Yoo Kay

[Pedrito]

The Whole concept of "Italy as a single nation" is ludicrous.

L.

[mongers]

The United? Kingdom

[Queequeg]

Yoo Kay

I don't think so.  Welsh is only spoken in the far north-west of Wales, Scottish is hardly spoken at all, the entire country is Protestant.  Having 300 years of unified government does a lot to unify a country, too. 

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think so.  Welsh is only spoken in the far north-west, Scottish is hardly spoken at all, the entire country is Protestant.  Having 300 years of unified government does a lot to unify a country, too.

But they view themselves and each other as distinct people.  In your example everyone speaks Italian.

[Queequeg]

I don't think so.  Welsh is only spoken in the far north-west, Scottish is hardly spoken at all, the entire country is Protestant.  Having 300 years of unified government does a lot to unify a country, too.

But they view themselves and each other as distinct people.  In your example everyone speaks Italian.

Completely wrong.  There are at least 5 different languages in Italy.  Sardinian is no more closely related to Italian than it is to Romanian. 

[Barrister]

The Whole concept of "Italy as a single nation" is ludicrous.

L.

Sure thing Mr. Bossi.

[Admiral Yi]

Completely wrong.  There are at least 5 different languages in Italy.  Sardinian is no more closely related to Italian than it is to Romanian.

How many Sardinians speak Sardinian?

[Queequeg]

1 million, so 16 times more than speak Scottish Gaelic and maybe 300,000 more than speak Welsh.  And that's one regional language. 

[Tamas]

I would put Romania up there. Romanians, Hungarians, Gypsies, maybe some leftover Germans (I don`t know), plus Moldavian and Wallachian Romanians hate each other allegedly, and there are the Szekelys who are like backwards mountain Hungarians living in one big blob in the middle of the country, resisting all efforts to even start assimilating.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Is Russia in Europe?

[Tamas]

Is Russia in Europe?

Do you want me to answer that? 

[Queequeg]

How would Spain rank?  I don't really know how well established non-Catalan/Valencian ethnic identities are.  I'd actually be interested in anecdotes on the subject.  Galician linguistically is far closer to Portuguese, and I would be interested to know how "Spanish" certain non-Castilian types view themselves. 

[Queequeg]

Is Russia in Europe?

Do you want me to answer that? 

At least their language is Indo-European, Turanian.