This project is researching endangered and extinct languages; unique and critical components of the arctic environment. The languages belong to three families:  Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit, Eskimo Aleut, and Indo-European (Alaska Russian).It  focuses on --but is not limited to--the lexical documentation of this acute diversity.Central Alaskan Yup'ik is by far the strongest language in Alaska, with 25, 000 in population, 10,000 speakers, including perhaps 20% of the children.  Except for this language, the term "endangered" in Alaska is a euphemism for "moribund."  It is still too early to evaluate the possible effect of incipient programs in a few locations for reversal of this loss.  It is clear, however, that adequate documentation would not only serve success of community language restoration programs in the long run, but is of course also a scientific end in itself--for obvious reasons done the sooner the better, quite literally.

Prioritization here is on lexicon in part because  Michael Krauss, the PI of the project believes that lexicon is less structured or cohesive than grammar, so it is more difficult to document comprehensively and easier to forget.  Further, a good dictionary, including affixes, and textual examples, will document more grammar than a good grammar will document lexicon, especially for these Alaskan languages, all highly polysynthetic.

This research will produce a defiinitive collection of dictionaries, grammars and assorted publications/web resources that have never existed.The results represent the lifetime work of several scholars and create a body of work for future researchers, students and communities which are home to the languages.  This body of work will  be used in  the development of curriculum  thereby influencing and educating generations to come and towards the  preservation of these languages.

Our project is funded by the National Science Foundation under grant #732787.