The INDEX OF LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY (ILD) is the first global index of trends in linguistic diversity. By measuring changes in the number of mother-tongue speakers of a globally representative sample of languages, it provids solid quantitative data that show whether any of the world’s languages (particularly indigenous languages) have been losing speakers over the past 40 years, and if so, at what pace.

Concern about the future of the world’s languages has been building for the better part of two decades. A large amount of qualitative evidence points to an impending major extinction of languages. The quality of this evidence ranges from the merely anecdotal to very accurate narrative accounts based on first-hand knowledge of the language demographics of individual speech communities. Overall, this evidence leaves no room to doubt that, for a variety of complex reasons, the diversity of the world’s languages--and the cultural diversity they represent--is being severely compromised.

However, until now there was much less quantitative evidence of a linguistic diversity crisis. Published estimates of the percentage of languages likely to die out during this century have been little more than informed conjecture. Categorical statements of the rate of extinction --”X number of languages are dying every year”--are widely quoted in popular accounts but never referenced to a rigorous estimate. Therefore, while obtaining accurate rates of mother-tongue language extinctions is important, even more important is to have a quantitative measure of global trends in linguistic diversity, as a key component of biocultural diversity. Governments, international organizations, and the general public will likely take the decline of linguistic diversity--and, by extension, the loss of biocultural diversity--more seriously if there is a readily understandable global metric that captures the essence of the problem.

The ILD provides exactly this metric. It is an easy-to-grasp quantitative explanation of trends in linguistic diversity since 1970. While the technical details and data nuances that underlie the ILD are highly complex, the basic graphs that depict it are simple trend lines. The ILD relies on a single variable that anyone can understand: the number of speakers of the world’s languages. The importance of the ILD is that it provides a numerically based summary of a key trend affecting biocultural diversity. It provides the quantitative data needed to complement existing qualitative work that is being done to promote appreciation of linguistic and biocultural diversity.

These quantitative data can also be used to contribute to international processes that will significantly affect the actions of governments and other institutions vis-à-vis linguistic and biocultural heritage, such as the CBD’s 2010 Target, the IUCN 2008-2012 program, the work of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and of UNESCO, among others. In particular, the CBD 2010 Target calls for the adoption of a series of global indicators in specific focal areas related to biodiversity levels and ecosystem quality in order to assess in an objective and targeted way progress towards the reduction of biodiversity loss. Focal Area 5 refers to the protection of traditional knowledge, practices and innovations. The only headline indicator in this area that has been formally endorsed by the CBD so far is “Status and trends of linguistic diversity and numbers of speakers of indigenous languages” (decision 30, paragraph 27). The ILD directly address the need for such an indicator.

ILD_DATA TABLES

For more information on this project please contact:

David Harmon
dharmon@georgewright.org

Jonathan Loh
jonathan@livingplanet.org.uk

• index of biocultural diversity
• vitality index of traditional ecological knowledge