Publisher's Synopsis
The collection of articles in this volume shows that the extinction of languages is a world-wide phenomenon. Smaller languages are giving way everywhere to pressure of official, dominant languages. The extinction of languages affects the empirical basis of linguistic science and in particular of historical and typological studies. There is a growing awareness among linguists that steps must be taken with regard to this rapid decline, and this volume represents an important step towards recording the grammar, lexicon and oral literature of languages which are on the verge of extinction.
