The index of linguistic diversity: A new quantitative measure of trends in the status of the world's languages

dc.contributor.author Harmon, David
dc.contributor.author Loh, Jonathan
dc.date.accessioned 2010-09-15T00:44:08Z
dc.date.available 2010-09-15T00:44:08Z
dc.date.issued 2010-09
dc.description.abstract The Index of Linguistic Diversity (ILD) is a new quantitative measure of trends in linguistic diversity. To derive the ILD we created a database of time-series data on language demographics, which we believe to be the world’s largest. So far, the database contains information from nine editions of Ethnologue and five other compendia of speaker numbers. The initial version of the ILD, which draws solely on the Ethnologue subset of these data, is based on a representative random sample of 1,500 of the world’s 7,299 languages (as listed in the 2005 edition). At the global level, the ILD measures how far, on average, the world’s languages deviate from a hypothetical situation of stability in which each language is neither increasing nor decreasing its share of the total population of the grouping. The ILD can also be used to assess trends at various subglobal groupings. Key findings: • Globally, linguistic diversity declined 20% over the period 1970–2005. • The diversity of the world’s indigenous languages declined 21%. • Regionally, indigenous linguistic diversity declined over 60% in the Americas, 30% in the Pacific (including Australia), and almost 20% in Africa.
dc.description.sponsorship National Foreign Language Resource Center
dc.format.extent 55 pages
dc.identifier.citation Harmon, David and Jonathan Loh. 2010. The index of linguistic diversity: A new quantitative measure of trends in the status of the world's languages. Language Documentation & Conservation 4. 97-151.
dc.identifier.issn 1934-5275
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4474
dc.language.iso eng
dc.publisher University of Hawai'i Press
dc.rights Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License
dc.rights.cc Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
dc.rights.cccode by-nc-d-sa
dc.subject language trends
dc.subject indices
dc.subject linguistic diversity
dc.subject cultural diversity
dc.title The index of linguistic diversity: A new quantitative measure of trends in the status of the world's languages
dc.type Article
dc.type.dcmi Text
prism.endingpage 151
prism.publicationname Language Documentation & Conservation
prism.startingpage 97
prism.volume 4
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