Normally I use Russia for these examples, as is my wont, but the rossiyane have been culturally standardized to some extent by virtue of Soviet standardized education and they all at least know how to speak Russian, whereas India doesn't have a main language at all. Even Hindi is spoken by less than half the population.
BTW is use of English as an official language still controversial among Hindi-speakers?
--- On Tue, 7/21/09, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>
> It's not edge vs centre, is it? It's edge vs the rest i.e.,
> the vast majority of the USA seems to me to be more
> homogenous in comparison to some other parts. This if I read
> him right is Chris' point. He also seems to be saying that
> that's not a value judgement. I don't see it as one either.
> I am not sure I introduced any geographic metaphor here. I
> have been trying to follow this for a while and failing, but
> was prompted to post after the mention of India.
>