Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Your problem is that you seem to see the nation as the natural and one and only frame of reference. The very Westphalian states concept is not that age old either. And guess what, its also a "European concept".

National histories, myths, points of identification vary, some needed more artificial back up, others less. It does not change the point that before nationalism swept over Europe, that the whole situation looked quite different. If there were "true" identities they were tribal, or feudal at best. You see it very beautifully when you look at France and Spain. The language change was once gradual. There was no sudden language border. You see the remains of that fact even today. Of course there were languages sprinkled around that had nothing to do with the rest, but as I have said on feudal dimensions. There was a abrupt languages rift however, but it was one between social classes. The aristocracy shared the language for a long time not with the people they ruled, but with the the others across Europe. The same for the scientific community, in most parts of Europe it had only one: Latin. (Orthodox Europe had old Greek) The attempt to talk away the strong interconnection between the monasteries and afterwards of the universities all over Europe is a ridicule one.

The modern age, a category which in itself is a European concept, was to a considerable extend the consequence of new old knowledge gained in Spain during the Reconquista, by not burning down the Muslim libraries and centres of knowledge and education but the contrary, by employing Muslims together with the own thinkers to access that knowledge. The result was nothing less than that long lost wisdom from the ancient age found its way home to Europe again and it took not too long to spread all over Europe again. The age of Renaissance appeared in different realms it took place faster or slower but thats not the point here. The following age of colonization actually formed the first time the concept of Europe as such, because before, Europe was just all of the well known world. ...

In the time to come with the rise of nationalism what happened? Different things took place, in some parts, tribal identities (and even they were not "pure") were bloated up to national sizes while others got extincted. In other cases, the nation was a deliberate fusion of various local identities, it was a somehow the average of all the various realms. In yet other cases, one tribe was forced out of their home region and spread over an entire area and their features became important uniting symbols as well, as many regions adopted them afterwards...

There are loads of examples. They all have in common that there is little natural and predetermined about most modern European nations. They did not simply unfold, they were constructed based on exaggerating similarities within and differences to those outside.