3 Alaskan languages part of global "hotspot"

According to a Sept 18 article in the National Geographic News, three Alaska Native languages -- Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit -- have been identified by the Enduring Voices Project as part of a global "hotspot" where languages are disappearing most rapidly.

These languages are part of the Northwest Pacific Plateau hotspot, one of five global hotspots identified by the project. Alaska itself is not actually part of this hotspot. Rather, these three languages are included because they are spoken also outside of Alaska in neighboring British Columbia. Why isn't Alaska included? It's because the formula used by the researchers weighs both language endangerment and language diversity, as well as quality of existing documentation. Alaska scores high enough on endangerment (unfortunately), but not so high on diversity. In fact, most of Alaska's Native languages below to just two language families: Eskimo-Aleut and Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit (or Na-Dene, if Haida is included). And though no linguist ever claims that documentation is adequate, there is indeed an enormous body of extant documentation for Alaska languages. (Ironically, this inlcudes the three languages mentioned in the hotspot. The body of transcribed Tlingit oral literature is impressive, and a massive dictionary of Haida was just published recently.)

One thing that strikes me about the National Geographic story is the focus on "last speakers" and the discovery of "lost languages". While such events are real, they are not unexpected. As we enter a time of mass language loss, we will probably find that our definition of what counts as a language and who counts as a speaker will change.

Consider a hypothetical example of a 60 year old semi-fluent speaker who heard her Native language while growing up but never felt comfortable speaking it. So long as speakers from her parent's generation are alive, she may be reluctant to claim to be a fluent speaker. And linguists who spent their careers working with her parent's generation may not consider the 60-year-old to be a speaker. Time goes by, and the older generation passes on, and the language is mourned as a vanished tongue. A decade later a research team comes along and "discovers" this younger speaker, now age 70, and now willing to assert her (partial?) knowledge of the language, as there are no remaining speakers who are more fluent. Another "last speaker" is found.

A related phenomenon occurs with languages, as language death perversely leads to an increase in the number of languages. As languages fall out of use, chains of related, mutually-intelligible dialects tend to become more different. Speakers may even emphasize these differences between dialects in order to foster support for language and culture revitalization programs. As dialects in the middle of a chain of dialects are lost, those dialects at the ends of the chain begin to seem more different, begin to be viewed as different languages. So it is that language death gives rise to language birth.

Alaska may not be a language hotspot, but it has played a unique role in the history of indigenous languages. As Michael Krauss has pointed out, Alaska stands at the "Crossroads of Continents" with respect to the original settling of the Americas (see Many Tongues - Ancient Tales). That is, all Native Americans were at one time Native Alaskans, as they traveled across the Bering land bridge, spending centuries in Alaska before moving south and east. Language diversity in Alaska was certainly much greater in ancient times.