Totally true. I read some interesting research some years ago, which I can’t find now of course, that people who speak smaller languages (ie with less global speaking population) feel safer because they simply aren’t exposed to as many bad things happening in their own language. So when a plane crashes in the US, UK people feel more impacted from it because they can see victims and relatives speaking about it in a language that feels like their home language. Though to people in Denmark that crash was “abroad”, so “nothing I need to worry about; it was far from home”.

“Near” is people who speak your language. “Far away” is people who don’t.