Linguistic superpowers or...

I found this link

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/230-papua-new-guinea-the-linguistic-superpower/

on nakedtranslations (a translator's blog). For people who don't
follow links it's a map purportedly showing countries ranked by
linguistic diversity. Here are the results for the top 12. I'm not
convinced by any of these numbers but the one that puzzles me is
Nigeria. Is there any evidence that Nigeria is more linguistically
diverse than its neighbours?

Papua New Guinea 823 languages
Indonesia 726
Nigeria 505
India 387
Mexico 288
Cameroon 279
Australia 235
DR Congo 218
China 201
Brazil 192
United States 176
Philippines 169
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Linguistic superpowers or...
    ... follow links it's a map purportedly showing countries ranked by ... linguistic diversity. ... Is there any evidence that Nigeria is more linguistically ... Papua New Guinea 823 languages ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Linguistic superpowers or...
    ... follow links it's a map purportedly showing countries ranked by ... linguistic diversity. ...  Is there any evidence that Nigeria is more linguistically ... The number for Indonesia looks grossly inflated ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Linguistic superpowers or...
    ... linguistic diversity. ... Is there any evidence that Nigeria is more linguistically ... The number for Indonesia looks grossly inflated ... 235 is a fair estimate of the number of languages that we know about that existed in Australia at the time of first contact. ...
    (sci.lang)