This map shows linguistic diversity index around the world. Linguistic Diversity Index (LDI) or Greenberg's diversity index is an index to measure how diverse a country's languages are.
LDI is on a scale of 1 to 0 with 1 indicating total diversity (that is, no two people have the same mother tongue) 0 indicates no diversity at all (that is, everyone has the same mother tongue).
The computation of the diversity index is based on the population of each language as a proportion of the total population. The Coverage column indicates the completeness of the computation by reporting the percentage of languages in the country for which population estimates are available. The index cannot fully account for the vitality of languages. Also, The distinction between a language and a dialect is fluid and often political. A great number of languages are considered to be dialects of another language by some experts and separate languages by others.
14 years ago
