Survey for Alaskan Athabaskanists

[James Crippen]

I'm looking for Athabaskanists who have worked extensively in Alaska
that are interested in participating in a survey about language
endangerment and revitalization in Alaska. I'm interested in gathering
professional estimates about how healthy various languages in Alaska
are, and what sort of revitalization programs might exist or have
existed in the past.

Here is a random sampling of questions to give some idea about the survey:

  What estimated number of people in the area are L1 speakers of the language?
  Are there villages where the L1 speakers are the majority? If so, which ones?
  Is there a modern reference grammar for the language? If so, provide
a reference.
  Is there a centralized collection of audio and video recordings of
L1 speakers?
  Do any local government agencies (village, tribe, regional corp.,
etc.) have formal statements or policies regarding Native language
conservation? Summarize them or provide references if possible.
  Are there curriculum materials available for teaching children the language?

And so forth. It's a two page questionnaire that should take a couple
of hours to complete, depending on how detailed one wants to be in
answering. I'm doing this for a class project on the status of Alaska
Native languages. It may become a publication in the future, but I
don't have plans for that yet. The last time that anyone looked at the
status of Alaska Native languages in total was Mike Krauss back in
1980, so it's time to look again.

Please email me directly if you're interested in participating, and
let me know what languages and areas you could report on. I'm still
working on the IRB/HSC stuff, so I can't ask any real questions just
yet, but I can at least start gathering participants.

Thanks,
James