I’ll start first: at the height of reddit going absolutely mad and frothing at the mouth I heard r/genzedong mentioned a lot as this evil evil tankie place, so I checked it out. Was a bit overly china fanboy-ish for my taste back then but alright overall and leagues more civil than people on other subs. So I started lurking over there to preserve my sanity until it basically became my most frequently viewed sub. I’ve kinda warmed up to the whole idea of socialism during my stay. And then it got quarantined. I’ve heard of lemmygrad even before the quarantine, so I switched to this place instead. As of this moment, lemmygrad remains my primary source of news and entertainment where I dont have to risk running into some flavour of wehraboo.
Didn’t these countries develop language and culture independent from each other? Or are their languages similar?
I wrote a very long response but I’ll keep it short.
To answer your 2nd question: yes and no. Maritime Southeast Asia (SEA), consisting of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Phillipines all speak an Austronesian language. Mainland SEA, consisting of Viet Nam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia have their own language families.
This is not including “non-indigenous” languages brought by immigrants over the centuries.
Prior to Islam’s introduction in SEA, maritime SEA culture actually was quite similar to that of the mainland. Hinduism, Buddhism and other local traditional faiths were practiced in the archipelago. Furthermore, when Islam did get brought over by Indian and Arab traders, it reached the Phillipines and as far as Western Papua.
The archipelago was also a regional hub for trade, with continent wide trade routes that would bring goods from very disparate places, similar to that of Africa prior to colonization. So our cultures were intimately connected and only grew seperate due to colonization starting in the 16th century.