How did countries in Europe, develop complex distinct languages between each other? Despite them being so close?
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My favorite example of huge accent differences between towns with the same language is the wonderful world of the Flemish.
Belgium is a country decided by class and language. Funnily we can just say language. Note Brussels, the capital, is the exception to most of what I say so take that into account.
The official language of Belgium was French until the (dramatic drum roll) Language Wars of the 60s. This “war” accrued when the Flemish part of Belgium started to become the richer part of the country overtaking the more resource rich French speaking south. The language war was about the right of the Flemish to speak Flemish in Flanders. Crazy.
The situations that the average Flemish would find them in were weird. For instance a university lecturer who speaks Flemish in front of a class of wholly Flemish speaking students in the middle of Flanders was forced to speak French. It was illegal to speak Flemish if you were on the government payroll.
This made some people upset.
But there was a side effect from all of this French speaking in a Flemish speaking world.
Since there were no standard Flemish speakers (nothing on TV for instance), with any conversation outside of your monkey sphere always being in French (post office, government officials etc) most towns never heard any “outside” Flemish accent.
This accumulated in nearly every town in Flanders having widely differing accents. Imagine a broad Scottish accent in one place and 20 kilometers away the town speaks with an Appalachia accent.
This still manifests itself on Flemish TV where a street interview with a Flemish person, say, will still involve Dutch subtitles of what they’re saying.
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