The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim

Osahito Miyaoka is Professor of Linguistics, Osaka Gakuin University in Japan, having previously been chair of linguistics at Kyoto and Hokkaido Universities. He was the founding editor of Languages of the North Pacific Rim (Volume 1, 1994) and in 1999 set up the Japanese Project of Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim at Kyoto University. Since 1967 he has studied Central Alaskan Yupik, an Eskimoan language, working as an associate at University of Alaska campuses. Alongside his 'Sketch of Central Alaskan Yupik, an Eskimoan Language' in the Handbook of North American Indians (1996) and he has sought to revitalize Yupik by such activities as training bilingual teachers and preparing teaching materials. He was a visiting fellow at Research Centre of Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University in 2004. Osamu Sakiyama is Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Shiga Prefecture after serving professorship at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. He is a specialist in the Austronesian languages, working in Indonesia, Madagascar, Hainan, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea. His published work includes Studies of Minority Languages in the Western Pacific Rim (2003) and Comparative and Historical Studies of Micronesian Languages (2004).Michael Krauss is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Alaska. After devoting his student and postdoctoral years to Gaelic, Icelandic, and Faroese, Professor Krauss has spent his entire career since 1960 in the study of Alaska Native languages, all more or less severely endangered, with special attention to Siberian Yupik, documentary and comparative work with Athabaskan, and above all, Eya, which now has one surviving native speaker. His publications include Eyak Dictionary (1970) and In Honor of Eyak (1982). In 1972 he founded the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and directed it until 2000. Here he assembled the archive of Alaska Native language documentation and has, especially since 1990, worked to alert the world's attention to the enormity of the language endangerment crisis.

• PART I ; 1. Mass Language Extinction, and Documentation: The Race Against Time ; 2. Documenting and/or Preserving Endangered Languages ; 3. Linguistic Fieldwork Among Speakers of Endangered Languages ; 4. Language Policy and Language Rights ; 5. Using Written Records to Revitalize North American Languages ; 6. Indigenous Voices and the Linguistics of Language Revitalization ; 7. Pidgins and Creoles in the ; 8. Linguistic Diversity in Decline: A Functional View ; PART II ; SOUTH PACIFIC (RIM) ; 9. Languages of Middle America ; 10. Languages of the Pacific Coast of South America ; 11. Fuegian Languages ; 12. Indigenous Languages of Australia ; 13. Languages of New Guinea ; 14. Languages of the Pacific Region: Malayo-Polynesian ; SOUTHEAST ASIA ; 15. Indigenous Languages of Formosa ; 16. Languages of Mainland South-East Asia ; 17. Minority Languages of China ; 18. Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan ; NORTHERN PACIFIC RIM ; 19. Nivkh and Ainu ; 20. Siberia: Tungusic and Paleosiberian ; 21. Native Languages of Alaska ; 22. Languages of the Northwest Coast ; 23. Languages of California ; 24. Languages of the South-West United States