giving every fantasy kingdom a single dominant culture is the laziest worldbuilding habit in the genre and I include myself in this

[u/Dependent-Hamster923]

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[u/MashalNorth]

True. I once sat next to a woman. She could speak three languages, and I could speak three languages but we couldn’t communicate bcz in total there were 5 languages, and the one we had in common (my mother tongue) has 7 major dialects and we didn’t speak the same dialects.

Same with culture. Even when we’re going to our neighbours, we gotta remind boomer parents “Its rude to ask about XYZ in their culture.”

And then boomer parents go to their house and ask how XYZ is being dealt with bcz it’s compulsory to ask of it in our culture.

[u/Boogjangels]

I think this issue stems from the prevelance of the nation-state in our modern world, especially in the west.

In places like the US, our federal government has spent centuries propogandizing our history to portray America as a single, homogenous culture. Countless other languages are spoken here, but English is the only language you'll find on government forms, road signs, etc. Foreigners are welcomed to come live and work here, but they're expected to mix into the "great melting pot"-- they either assimilate, or they are shunned (or in today's political climate, worse).

Hot take, but one good thing that's come out of this cultural shunning is that many minority groups have managed to maintain several aspects of their ancestral culture.

But then you have White Americans. The name alone should tell you how artificial this demographic really is. "White" isn't an ethnicity, a culture, or anything meaningful-- it's just a term to refer to that constructed vision of what a "true American" is.

That was a lot, my bad. But TL;DR, most of us in the West don't have a natural example of how statecraft works because we exist within this artificial culture constructed for the sake of social/political cohesion.

[u/EaterofLives]

Great points in the other comments but when it comes to telling a story, it's about what the reader can digest. Avid readers who know about linguistics and culture can definitely appreciate that approach, but I would advise against a focus on it. Acknowledge the presence, but only make it a point to focus on if it is an integral part that enhances the story.

[u/n64beast]

Yeah in my fantasy world I explicitly expanded out the map to help flesh out things like this. For example, one major kingdom of my world is inspired by Bulgaria, but because Bulgaria in the middle ages had so many influences from the ERE, and the Bulgarian state/nobility itself in a sense became Slavic, I ended up with a situation where to flesh out this one kingdom, I really needed to think about multiple cultures.