Probability that any two people of a country selected at random would have different mother tongues (Greenberg’s Diversity Index)
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Greenberg’s Diversity Index is the probability that two people selected from the population at random will have different languages. Index ranges from 0 (everyone has the same language) to 100 (no two people have the same language).
Greenberg’s Diversity Index based on the population of each language as a proportion of the total population.
Top 20 the most linguistically diverse countries in the world
- Papua New Guinea – 99
- Vanuatu – 97
- Solomon Islands – 97
- Tanzania – 97
- Central African Republic – 96
- Chad – 95
- Democratic Republic of the Congo – 95
- Cameroon – 94
- India – 93
- Mozambique – 93
- Uganda – 93
- Gabon – 92
- Cote d’Ivoire – 92
- Liberia – 91
- Angola – 90
- Kenya – 90
- Togo – 90
- Timor-Leste – 90
- Mali – 88
- Nigeria – 87
Top 20 countries where most languages are spoken
| Rank | Country | Percen of languages | Percen of world languages | Official or national languages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | 742 | 10.73% | English, Indonesian |
| 2 | Nigeria | 516 | 7.47% | Edo, Efik, Adamawa Fulfulde, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Central Kanuri, Yoruba, English |
| 3 | India | 427 | 6.18% | Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Meitei, Nepali, Oriya, Eastern Panjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu. |
| 4 | USA | 311 | 4.50% | English |
| 5 | Mexico | 297 | 4.30% | Spanish |
| 6 | Cameroon | 280 | 4.05% | English, French |
| 7 | Australia | 275 | 3.98% | English |
| 8 | China | 241 | 3.49% | Mandarin Chinese, Regional: Daur, Kalmyk-Oirat, Lu, Peripheral Mongolian, Central Tibetan, Uyghur, Xibe, Northern Zhuang |
| 10 | Democratic Republic of Congo | 216 | 3.12% | Koongo, Lingala, Luba-Kasai, Congo Swahili, French |
| 11 | Brazil | 200 | 2.89% | Portuguese |
| 12 | Philippines | 180 | 2.60% | Filipino, English |
| 13 | Malaysia | 147 | 2.13% | Malay |
| 14 | Canada | 145 | 2.10% | English, French |
| 15 | Sudan | 134 | 1.94% | Standard Arabic |
| 16 | Chad | 1.22 | 1.92% | Standard Arabic, French |
| 17 | Russia | 129 | 1.87% | Russian |
| 18 | Tanzania | 128 | 1.85% | Swahili, English |
| 19 | Nepal | 125 | 1.81% | Nepali |
| 20 | Vanuatu | 115 | 1.66% | Bislama, English |
