Abstract

All over the world, local languages are facing possible or probable extinction. The situation is nowhere more acute than for First Nations* in the regions now called the United States of America and Canada. In the face of this situation many people have become interested in studying endangered languages. Interest in threatened languages comes from many different sides: commercial, academic, scientific, religious, and more. The most immediately affected are of course the very speakers of the languages and the communities where they live or have lived.