... biodiversity encompasses all biological life forms on this planet. We, as human beings, are also part of this diversity, yet the remarkable feature of the human species is its uniformity in purely biological terms. This is revealed when we consider that the human genome, the map of all human genes, contains an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 genes and in genetic terms every single person on this planet possesses 99.99% of the same genes. [2] As such, human beings are remarkably similar. This has led to increasing recognition that in purely biological terms, the concept of race appears to be meaningless.
Working from the opposite direction, linguists have established that the richness of human diversity lies on the cultural level. They have established that there are approximately 6,000 spoken human languages. [3] Of these between 4,000 and 5,000 are estimated to be spoken by indigenous peoples. That is, indigenous peoples speak somewhere between 67% to 83% of the world's languages. [4]
Do follow this link to read more about the connections between human diversity and biodiversity.
It seems that we are rapidly losing both.
Also here is a lovely map of Australia showing the indigenous languages.
You can explore the interactive indigenous map
at the Australian Broadcasting Company site.
