census_2011_linguistic_diversity: Census 2011 linguistic diversity

In censusindia: Census of India Data, 1901-2011, with Boundaries and Projections

Census 2011 linguistic diversity

Description

District-level linguistic diversity metrics derived from the 2011 Census C-16 mother tongue tables, counting named mother tongues only. C-16 files the unscheduled languages of the northeast under per-group "Others" residuals, which carry no language name and are excluded; coverage reports the share of the district the metrics are computed from, and falls below 0.9 in 34 districts and below 0.5 in 7.

Usage

census_2011_linguistic_diversity

Format

A tibble with 640 rows and 11 columns:

state_name_harmonized

Harmonized state name for joining across datasets

state_code

Numeric state code

district_code

Numeric district code

n_languages

Number of distinct languages spoken

total_speakers

Total speakers across all languages

shannon_entropy

Shannon entropy of the language distribution

effective_languages

Effective number of languages (2^shannon_entropy)

dominant_language

Most-spoken language

dominant_share

Share of speakers of the dominant language

district_name

Name of the district

coverage

Share of district population in named mother tongues

Source

Census of India 2011, C-16 Mother Tongue Tables (derived).

censusindia documentation built on Oct. 15, 2026, 5:08 p.m.