Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Original source: Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
Last edited by Fish & Chips; 01-01-2017 at 11:06 PM..
Original source: Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
Yes. For example, for linguistic diversity more Australians than Americans speak a language other than English at home, and a far higher proportion were born into, and so have direct attachment to, a foreign culture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Return2FL
The numbers are almost exactly the same for both nations.
Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
Last edited by Fish & Chips; 01-01-2017 at 11:30 PM..
Ethnic fractionalization and cultural diversity scores, by region and ethnic fractionalization. Rank of Cultural Ethnic Frac. Cultural Frac. Frac. Within Region Western Europe and Japan
1 Canada 0.596 0.499 1
2 Switzerland 0.575 0.418 3
3 Belgium 0.567 0.462 2
4 Spain 0.502 0.263 6
5 USA 0.491 0.271 5
6 New Zealand 0.363 0.363 4
7 UK 0.324 0.184 9
8 France 0.272 0.251 7
9 Sweden 0.189 0.189 8
10 Ireland 0.171 0.157 10
11 Australia 0.149 0.147 11
This
If you look at what the top four countries are in there, they're all countries that have "nations within the nation", and the first three are recognized as, or are at least arguably, multi-national states. With large areas of the country that are self-contained in their specificity and basically "foreign" to the rest of the country.
Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
Again, this obviously reflects the fact that one quarter to one fifth of Canada functions pretty much entirely in French.
In terms of broad distinct groupings: Native American and Inuit. Of course when you break that down into individual tribes, clans or nations the number is a lot higher, but that is also the case for both Canada and Australia.
For Australia the broad groups are Tasmanian Aboriginal, mainland Aboriginal ( Tasmania was separated from the mainland by rising sea levels over 10,000 years ago) and Torres Strait islander. They're not part of the same cultural continuum. Of course, in terms of individual language and tribal groups, the number would be over 300.
Just realised I forgot about the Hawaiian population....
It's hard to say as I haven't studied their methodology but I'd guess somewhere in between the U.S. and Australia's scores.
In terms of having large areas with a second language having a significant impact, Australia and Canada (taking out the French element) don't really have anything like the U.S. has with Spanish.
Even though the overall impact of Spanish in the U.S. is quite a bit less than French in Canada (adding it back in now).
I mean, for the purposes of this discussion, really there is 20-25% of Canada that can't even be considered as part of the "Anglosphere" in anything more than an accessory way.
Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.
It would be interesting to see how the granularity of official statistics impacts those results. For example, indonesia is listed as having >700 languages, but I'd be surprised if the Australian Bureau of Statistics disaggregated "Indonesian" to anywhere near that degree for immigrants from that country. I suspect they'd all be classified as simply "Indonesian". Similarly the different dialects of Arabic, or even Chinese as spoken by immigrants from the Chinese diaspora across South East Asia.
Last edited by Bakery Hill; 01-02-2017 at 12:15 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
