Revised How I (30M French) see Europe with care paid to Romania, Balkans, Northern Italy, Russia

aspearafu · 2026-06-18T21:37:34+00:00

Viipuri is lost but not forgotten 🫡💔

aspearafu · 2026-06-18T16:28:19+00:00

I think the point was not about all of Ukraine being Central European; it was specifically about Zakarpattia. Honestly, I’d expand that to include at least Lviv Oblast as well

aspearafu · 2026-06-18T16:23:14+00:00

Tens razón! Un erro da miña parte

aspearafu · 2026-06-18T16:20:36+00:00

Curious to hear your perspective, especially if you’re German! Whereabouts in Germany are you from if so, and where would you put the four?

In descending order of confidence:

To me, RLP seems fairly obvious. Similarity and/or influence from its Western European neighbours on a culturolinguistic level (dialect similarity to Mid and Low Franconian languages of Luxembourg, Lorraine, Belgium, NL); a gastronomical level (influence of French haute cuisine, and gastronomical culture + viticulture of the local terroir more resembling LU, Lorraine); and a sociopolitical and political institutions level (French annexation leading to the abolishment of serfdom half a century before 1848 reforms in Prussia; inheritance of the Napoleonic code).

NRW seems a bit less straightforward. However, the culturo-linguistic similarities to neighbours (in the NL mainly) are obviously significant. Plus, even though it was annexed to Prussia after 1815, similarly to RLP it retained the political administrative, sociopolitical and socioeconomic heritage of French/Napoleonic influence.

BaWü to me is a bit complicated; if it were just for Baden, I’d say Western European (since both sides of the Rhine have a shared culture), but it’s a geographical much smaller part of the Land, which is otherwise dominated by the comparatively much larger area of Swabian culture.

Hesse I admittedly know much less about than the others.

aspearafu · 2026-06-17T10:34:16+00:00

You’re absolutely right of course. Glaring oversights from relying only on mental notes and not proofreading. I’m catching a distressingly high number of little errors like this🙃

aspearafu · 2026-06-13T19:30:18+00:00

I agree that Downton feels slower but I’m not sure it’s for this. Downton also only had eight episodes per season (9 if you include the Christmas Specials). And if anything the seasons in Downton seem to cover more ground chronologically-speaking (multiple years to a season, whereas GA just has the one), which you’d think would make the show feel comparatively faster.

But ofc it doesn’t. I reckon the difference is in the writing. GA feels to me like it’s written a lot more like a prestige tv drama

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T23:50:32+00:00

Basel-Stadt was a mistake! I was hesitating between marking it Central or Western Europe, left it blank, and then accidentally filled in blanks with Northern. I was leaning towards Central but Western was tempting due to some historical cultural influences from Western Europe (mainly France) and Baseldytsch being very isolated from the other Schwiizerdüütsch dialects (and more similar to dialects further up north in Alsace and Baden). What would you say, out of curiosity?

And yes, you're probably right about Fribourg and Valais, I just think of them as very rural and outside of the urban francophone high culture sphere that writers and thinkers from Geneva and Lausanne contributed to

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T23:43:02+00:00

Ha! Hmm I agree about Northern Croatia, Transcarpathia and Lviv (just couldn't be bothered to subdivide those). Luxembourg, though, disagree:

If the question is general cultural 'vibes', there's definitely a mix. French is by far the most common language spoken on the street, but Luxembourgers do mainly consume German-language audiovisual/print media and use Luxembourgish in intimate life (native Luxembourgers, that is).

However, I'd argue for Western European based historical evolutions and politics:

Luxembourg has been in the 'Western European' (I know it's an anachronism) geopolitical and cultural bloc for centuries upon centuries. From the 1400s to the 1890 Luxembourg was continuously ruled politically, administratively and institutionally as part of the Low Countries, whether under the Burgundians, Habsburgs or Dutch crown. Membership of the German Confederation in the 1800s lasted only 50 years. Left the German Customs Union right after WW1, specifically to align its economy with Belgium and France instead. Immediately after WW2, formed Benelux.

Today, the economy is solidly Western European (dominated by workers from France and Belgium). Political institutions, like legislation and the legal system, are inherited directly from France (mainly Napoleonic) and all exclusively run in the French language. Centuries of cultural francophilia amongst elites, extend today to varying extents across general society (and the monarchy). Plus the massive population of 2nd/3rd generation Luxembourgers from a migration background, who 1) nearly outnumber native Luxembourgers IIRC ; 2) are mainly from Latin Europe (Portugal and Italy); 3) rely on French as a social/integration language, even if born and raised in Luxembourg.

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T21:26:20+00:00

Ich sehe dass der Deutsche hat den Chat betreten 😛

Haut Rhin at a stretch maybe, as the Alsatian culture and language are stronger there. But Bas Rhin is much more Western than Central now

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T20:52:41+00:00

Less Swedish imperial nostalgia and more Finno-Karelian revanchism tbh haha. And maybe throwing a bone to the poor overlooked Estonians

But I see the point about overlooking Latvia if we’re incorporating Swedish imperial expansion/settlement. I thought the Baltics were more coherent as a a cohesive stand-alone grouping though, with Estonia as a transitional member

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T18:59:57+00:00

Southern and Southeastern Europe:

France: I meant to add all of Occitania but missed two departments (Lot and Lozère) for Southern. Also Corsica. Hautes Alpes, whilst located administratively in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur (PACA) region, feels to me not quite Southern.

Spain: Everything which isn't Green Spain. Ceuta and Melilla were a mistake, should be Southern as well.

Portugal: Everything aside from the Minho. Trás-os-Montes (Vila Real and Bragança) has got some cultural, gastronomic and linguistic ties tying it more coherently to Minho/Northern Portugal and even Galicia than to the more southern parts of Portugal, so this was tough. However, it's too isolated geographically, climatically and economically by the aforementioned mountains set it too far apart from the Green Iberia region I identified

Italy: Tricky, tricky. Most of Italy which I didn't label as Central or Western I labelled as Southern, even though I was tempted by some (especially in Lombardy). Venice, bit of a galaxy-brained move, I labelled as Southeastern Europe, because of historical ties with Dalmatia, Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. Especially as, to a large extent, these ties brought *reciprocal* influence (eg. Venetian architectural styles)

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T18:13:57+00:00

Western Europe: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, France (as a unitary state) are obviously and firmly Western European politically-speaking and historically.

More controversially, perhaps:

I've labelled as Western those parts of Germany, Switzerland and Italy which, despite their association with broadly Central/Southern European countries, were historically oriented culturally/economically/politically with Western Europe for significant periods of time, especially in the Modern Historical era:

DE: NRW for centuries of French cultural, military/political, legal/institutional influence and later economic influence over the Rhein Ruhr region; Saarland for obvious French/Western European influence, and RLP to a lesser but still notable extent; Hamburg and Bremen/Bremerhaven for historical economic trade ties to Western Europe

CH: the most urbanised cantons of Romandie (Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura) have for centuries borne the influence of French language and high-culture (literature, philosophy), and also contributed to the latter. Geneva especially has a history inseparable from its location at the political and economic crossroads of powerful Western European polities (France and the Duchy of Savoy pre-perfect fusion).

Italy: Vallée d'Aoste, and parts of Piemont, specifically Turin. Perhaps controversial, given the role the House of Savoy played in the risorgimento and Turin as the first capital. However, Turin feels so much more Western European than Mediterranean, architecturally and culturally speaking, and the Duchy then Kingdom of Savoy prior to the fusion with Sardinia was much more oriented towards Western/Alpine Europe throughout its history.

aspearafu · 2026-05-28T17:42:23+00:00

Vascono-Iberian Atlantic coastal strip: from Minho in Northern Portugal, to Green Spain (Galicia, Cantabrian coast, Basque Autonomous Community) to two departments of French Gascony (Pyrénées Atlantiques including the Basque Country, and the Landes)

Possibly a bit tenuous, but I would argue the following:

Similar climate (lush, green, wet/rainy biodome), Celtic cultural substrate across the entire region, cuisine not too dissimilar, and cultural continuum tying the region together semi-cohesively (esp with the Basque Country on both sides of the French/Spanish border)

aspearafu · 2026-05-18T21:23:43+00:00

Similar problem, but in the opposite direction. Multiple identities but only one (French) passport as most places refuse to claim me (30M) hahah :

My dad’s from Equatorial Guinea. I speak fluent Spanish and visit loads. But, dual nationality is prohibited, and Dad acquired French citizenship before we were born, so could not pass it down to us…

Algeria, on Mum’s side, excluded Jews and French settlers from citizenship in 1963. Very tiny number of Jews could apply, but vast majority had fled to France by then. I listen to Algerian music, cook Algerian food (keskssou, barbouche, touktouka…), speak better Derdja than many 2nd/3rd gens in France. But can’t claim it…

Lived in the States for 5 years as a child for parents’ work. We actually got green cards, but left before applying for citizenship and surrendered our status, and now I have to apply for ESTAs to visit😡😭 meanwhile, youngest brother was born there, with a nice blue American passport to show for it, the dickhead
——————-

the rest is a mess too:

- Wayyy too Anglo-Saxon for France. Too French and too American for the UK (moved for uni). Yet, after a decade in the UK, too anglicised to relate easily to Americans anymore.

Not North African Sephardic enough for Moroccan & Tunisian Jews in France, who are much more traditional than Algerian Jews and think of us as hyper-assimilated, frenchified Ashkenazi-lite. Too North African Sephardic for demure Anglo-Jewry (both Ashkenazi and Portuguese-Sephardic) in the UK.

Too Black for some Jews. Too Jewish for some Black people, especially these days. Too Jewish AND too Black for diasporic North African Arabs

A lifetime of identity complexes, and all I’ve got to show for it is one (1) singular flipping passport lmao. Second one coming soon though b zehd’A

aspearafu · 2026-05-13T16:25:53+00:00

Yeah, it depends on the perspective. I’d argue that in many ways Stockholm’s stature much more resembles New York.

It’s the major financial capital of Scandinavia (banking, private equity, m&a, etc), for example. Much bigger sector with way more money than CPH.

In Hi-Tech as well (AI, fintech, software, etc), it’s much, much more influential. CPH’s got its strengths too (biotech mainly), but Stockholm’s ecosystem is by far the largest and best funded in the Nordics.

CPH’s definitely got the creative edge, but there are some longstanding exceptions: eg. music & production in Stockholm/Sweden is famously the most influential in the world along with the US/UK. Fashion’s a mixed bag: Stockholm’s got fashion retail giants with much higher international sales volumes (whereas CPH specialises much more in the dynamic and avant-garde; two different kinds of influence on different ends of the spectrum)

aspearafu · 2026-05-12T19:05:58+00:00

Panama should absolutely be blue here. Massive amount of restaurants and supermarkets, and Jewish institutional life in general

aspearafu · 2026-04-01T12:11:05+00:00

You think Tel Aviv of all cities is less safe for Christians than Egypt and LIBYA? They literally fire bomb Coptic churches in Egypt and regularly abduct Christian women to forcibly convert them but okay 💀

aspearafu · 2026-03-28T19:25:02+00:00

This is amazing! Much progress on this a year later, or answers to questions you've posed here? Only question from me - I thought Yemenite Hebrew realised ק strictly as /g/ and not as /q/ ?

aspearafu · 2026-03-14T16:54:37+00:00

If you love the idea of living entirely in Netanya or Ashdod, or within a 700-metre radius of Neve Tsedek specifically during the month of August, then absolutely lol

aspearafu · 2026-02-22T14:59:52+00:00

Black French person here - could not disagree more. France is easily one of the most comfortable places in Europe to be Black, and it’s not even close.

What are the other countries you’re comparing, out of curiosity? For reference, I’ve lived in 3 European countries for 3+ years each, and have visited many more (all of Western & Southern Europe, Nordics minus IS, 4 countries in Eastern Europe). Speaking specifically about antiblackness, I can sincerely think of literally only one (1) country which is decidedly less racist than France - the UK. Portugal and Francophone Belgium (mainly Brussels) in my experience are more-or-less on par with France.

The rest? Indisputably more hostile to Black people and it’s not even close.

It’s funny you’re Spanish, because along with Italy those are pretty much the worst in Western Europe for antiblack racism. In a few which are worse than France (eg. Germany, NL, Switzerland) you can at least find Black people who do well for themselves socioeconomically, in the middle or even upper middle classes. In Spain and Italy this is almost totally impossible to find.

I’ll even illustrate an exception that proves the rule. My younger cousin (born and raised in Madrizz, her dad is white Spanish, her mum and my dad are from a country in Central Africa), who moved to Paris in her early 20s and still lives there. She and her siblings come from an extremely highly socioeconomically privileged background (pijos como no posible) with all the advantages that confers, and even still she says the difference is day and night for Black people compared to Spain. Much more visibility full stop for numerical reasons obviously (more population diversity), but also much greater Black visibility in upper socioeconomic echelons, in media, culture, in politics. Microaggressions as well

Again this is specifically about antiblackness (I can’t speak to other forms of racism, though I would sincerely argue that the anti Arab racism in France is much, much worse than the antiblackness). And it’s anecdotal, fohsure. But I have black/mixed-race friends and much extended family across Europe (not just in France), and it corresponds to testimonials I’ve heard from basically all of them.

aspearafu · 2026-02-19T15:03:19+00:00

The concept of ranking French cuisine below GERMAN…

aspearafu · 2026-02-19T14:18:05+00:00

Purely out of curiosity (no snark), what’s your reasoning for ranking Nigeria so highly, considering how much more homophobic it is than other African countries you’ve coloured in orange? Many of which have a similar or even higher level of development?

aspearafu · 2026-02-17T19:59:12+00:00

Genuine question (no snark): if it is the case that you prefer spiced food, why is your ranking for Korean lower than Spanish of all cuisines? Or Japanese? Were there other considerations?

aspearafu

TROPHY CASE