For most of human history, there were no countries. Nations simply didn’t exist in any sense of the word and every homeland on earth has had very fluid boundaries and multiple owners throughout most of human existence. The nations of the world as we know them today are fairly new contrivances.
From 1,000 BC – 200 AD there were pockets of civilization along waterways — both sides of the Mediterranean, the Caspian and Red Seas, the Indian Ocean, and the River Nile. The Egyptians pretty much ruled the roost because there was no one to really challenge their unrivaled power, other than the much weaker Assyrians (Syria), Etruscans (Italy), and the Greeks. Most of the planet, including the Americas, was essentially tribal.
By 250 AD there were a hodgepodge of long forgotten nation states like Thrace (Bulgaria), Bithynia (Turkey), Gaul (France), Illyricum (Serbia), and Numidia (Libya). But there were still no counties to speak of.
The next thousand years harkened in the Age of Empires. The endless hit parade of Persians, Parthians, Romans, Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians, they all just kept rolling along, killing and plundering the world with wanton abandon. Nations took a back seat to kingdoms.
But it was language more than anything else that ultimately led to the makeup of the planet that we take for granted these days. France is where they spoke French, German begat Germany, Italian became Italy, and so on down the line. Language created national identities.
But national boundaries changed like the seasons and many of today’s countries didn’t even exist as late as 1915 — I’m talking big ones, like Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, and all the Stans.
Once we had most of the nations in place, defined by their respective tongue-twisting languages, they all started, both large and small, to feel like they were quite important and took great exception to anything that might diminish their national pride. They began competing economically with and against one another and started forming military alliances, all culminating with two horrific world wars and endless regional conflicts right up to today.
The Bible talks about the Tower of Babel and God’s clever plan to create different languages to confound us all. And it worked like an evil charm.
There are about 6,500 languages on earth. There are 195 countries. Nations, like Sudan, Slovakia, Yemen, East Timor, and Kosovo, are perpetually dividing and conquering. Civil wars are popping up like wildfires all over the globe. There’s plenty of room for mischief.
Let’s just hope Bill Gates puts a universal translator chip in the next vaccine.