Although this has been the position since at least King of Sartar where we learnt that Sartar was colonized by exiles from Heortland. So they were the same culture at least 300 years ago. There were the Pharonic reforms, which the rebels left because they opposed but for Broyan to be opposed to them one assumes that there is resistance to them. Even in G:CotHW positioned the 'Westernized' Orlanthi as being mainly along the river valleys not in the interior. Later work expanded on both of those ideas with the Aeolians, and the Zombie King.
But I don't think that its unreasonable to see two cultures for the same origin and in contact for the last 300 years (with brief interruptions because of the Kitori) as being essentially similar.
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