In India, one of the world’s most polyglot countries, the government wants more than a billion people to embrace Hindi. One scholar thinks that would be a loss.
I think that there’s no hard limit. Each official language might add a bit of an additional cost to the government, but that cost is relatively small in comparison with the social and political benefits - including stability.
Eventually speakers of each language end clustered together, as you said near the end. But that’s fine, too; a population (subjects of a country) doesn’t need to coincide with a people (individuals sharing a common identity).
I think that there’s no hard limit. Each official language might add a bit of an additional cost to the government, but that cost is relatively small in comparison with the social and political benefits - including stability.
Eventually speakers of each language end clustered together, as you said near the end. But that’s fine, too; a population (subjects of a country) doesn’t need to coincide with a people (individuals sharing a common identity).