Same language or not? It's politics, stupid

One thing always amazes me is that there are so many different languages in the world. It could be the Babel tower which separates people from each other. But they are the results of our ancestors' creativity, and it makes the world so much more diverse that we will never get bored.

But language is also politics. I talked about the language situation in one of my previous posts, and today I want to talk about several examples in which two or more languages are virtually the same one, but they are named differently for a certain political or historical reason.

1. Hindi and Urdu:
Hindi and Urdu, together having about 500 million speakers, are spoken in a pair of political arch-rivals. True, there are considerable differences in vocabulary, especially in the formal language. Urdu draws much vocabulary from the fellow Muslim Persian and Arabic, while Hindi from the ancient Sanskrit. Plus, the written scripts are so different that many people wouldn't realize they are virtually the same language. In fact, they derive from the same dialect close to Delhi. Hindustani is a more academic and neutral way to address the two languages/two versions of the same language.

2. Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin:
Under Comrade Tito, Serbo-Croatian was spoken by the majority of Yugoslav people, with the rest spoke closely related Slovenian and Macedonian. But today, nobody would claim that he/she speaks Serbo-Croatian. For them, it is either Serbian for Serbs, Croatians for Croats, Bosnian for Bosniaks, even Montenegrin for the newly-independent nation. There are indeed differences nowadays, since different countries are standardizing their language differently, and they have been based on different dialects. But their difference is still trivial. It is, of course, good for a guy to claim that he speaks five languages, including Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian. In response, I may claim I speak American English, British English and Chinglish. They are still the same language today. But they may become different enough to be separated linguistically after the bitter political division.

3. Romanian and Moldovan:
Moldova, a former republic of Soviet Union, maintains that its official language is called Moldovan, which is a continuation of the Soviet policy. This is aimed to damp down any talk of unification with Romania. Most part of Moldova was Romanian-speaking, and it was part of Romania until the Second World War. In the eastern part of the country, there are significant Russian and Ukrainian populations, who have established a break-away but unrecognized republic. But all of those cannot change the fact that Moldovan is identical to Romanian. The only difference is Moldovan is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

4. Indonesian and Malay
When the "Thousand-Island Nation" gained its independence from the Netherlands, the government found that people speak so many different languages, and those languages can be very different on different islands. As part of the attempt to unite the newly-independent country, they "borrowed" the language from the neighboring Malaysia. The new Indonesian is not based on any language in Indonesia, but a dialect of Malay language. When Malaysia accused Indonesia stole their cultural heritage in a tourist commercial last year, what they really meant was that the whole language which unites Indonesia was stolen from Malaysia. For Malaysians, ss that actually something to be proud of?

5. Finnish and Karelian
Karelian is spoken in the Russian Republic of Karelian, but many people simply regard it as dialect of Finnish language. Karelians share their history with the neighboring Finnish, and a significant part of the republic was ceded by Finland after the Soviet invasion. Republic of Karelian was once at the equal level with other 15 republics, which showed Stalin's intention to annex Finland completely. Fortunately for Finland, he failed.

6. Persian and Dari
Dari, which refers to the historical court language of ancient Persian Empire, is spoken in Afghanistan. The name was encouraged by the Afghan government to distinguish with the language in the neighboring Iran. There are indeed some difference in phonology and vocabulary, but they are the same language. Mr. Ahmedinejad, any response?

7. Lao and Isan
Isan is the name given by the Thais to the combination of Lao dialect in their country. It is suffering from the official discouragement of the Thai government, which doesn't allow it in the public occasions. It doesn't even have its alphabet.

Please tell me if there are more examples.