Michael E. Krauss is a linguist who has worked extensively on the Na-Dené

Na-Dené languages

Na-Dene is a Native American language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. An inclusion of Haida is controversial....

 language family, especially on proto-Athabaskan, pre-proto-Athabaskan, the Eyak language

Eyak language

Eyak is an extinct Na-Dené language that was historically spoken by the Eyak people, indigenous to southcentral Alaska, near the mouth of the Copper River.The closest relatives of Eyak are the Athabaskan languages...

, which became extinct in January 2008, and also numerous other Athabaskan and Eskimo–Aleut languages.

With his 1991 address to the Linguistic Society of America, Krauss was among the first to create an awareness of the global problem of endangered languages. He has since worked to encourage the documentation and re-vitalization of endangered languages across the world.

Krauss, professor emeritus, joined the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks

University of Alaska Fairbanks

The University of Alaska Fairbanks, located in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, is the flagship campus of the University of Alaska System, and is abbreviated as Alaska or UAF....

 in 1960 and served as director of the Alaska Native Language Center

Alaska Native Language Center

The Alaska Native Language Center, established in 1972 in Fairbanks, Alaska, is a research center focusing on the research and documentation of the Alaska's Native languages. It publishes grammars, dictionaries, folklore collections and research materials, as well as hosting an extensive archive of...

 from its inception in 1972 until his retirement in June 2000. He remains active in efforts to document Alaska's Native languages and encouraged awareness of the global problem of endangered languages.

Education

Krauss received a B.A. from University of Chicago (1952);
M.A. from Columbia University, (1954); and Ph.D. from Harvard University (1959)

Gaelic

Krauss conducted fieldwork with Gaelic in Western Ireland (1956–1958)

Norse

Krauss conducted fieldwork with Norse languages in Iceland and in the Faroe Islands (1958–1960).

Athabaskan Comparative Linguistics

After completing a dissertation on Gaelic languages Krauss arrived in Alaska in 1960 to teach French at the University of Alaska. But Krauss was clearly aware of and interested in the indigenous languages of Alaska prior to his arrival. In fact, while en route to Alaska he visited Harry Hoijer

Harry Hoijer

Harry Hoijer was a linguist and anthropologist who worked on primarily Athabaskan languages and culture.He additionally documented the Tonkawa language, which is now extinct...

, the leading scholar of Athabaskan languages at the time. Arriving in Alaska he became immediately aware of the dire situation of the indigenous languages of Alaska and quickly turned his attention to documenting those languages, focusing initially on the (Lower) Tanana language

Lower Tanana language

Lower Tanana is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken in Interior Alaska in the lower Tanana River villages of Minto and Nenana. Of about 380 Tanana people in the two villages, about 30 still speak the language...

. This turned out to be quite fortuitous for scholars of Athabaskan comparative linguistics, as Lower Tanana nicely demonstrated a split in the Proto-Athabaskan *ts- series which was not evidenced in Hoijer's data. Although Krauss immediately communicated this new information to Hoijer, it was not incorporated into Hoijer's major Athabaskan monograph, printed in 1963. The Minto data did appear in a series of IJAL articles by Krauss in the mid to late 1960s, but it was some time before the existence of an additional Proto-Athabaskan affricate series became widely known.

Eyak

Krauss' largest contribution to language documentation is his work on Eyak

Eyak

The Eyak are an indigenous group traditionally located on the Copper River Delta and near the town of Cordova, Alaska.-Territory:The Eyak's territory reached from present day Cordova east to the Martin River and north to Miles Glacier....

, conducted through much of the 1960s. Eyak was then already the most endangered of the Alaskan languages, and Krauss' work is all the more notable considering that it represents what today might be considered salvage linguistics. While some Eyak data had been previously available, they were overlooked by previous scholars, including Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....

. However, Eyak proved to be a crucial missing link for historical linguistics, being equally closely related to neighboring Ahtna and to distant Navajo. With good Eyak data it became possible to establish the existence of the Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit language family, though phonological evidence for links to Haida remained elusive. Further, the system of vowel modifications present in Eyak inspired Krauss' theory of Athabaskan tonogenesis, whereby tone develops from vowel constriction.

Endangered Languages

Michael Krauss contends that in the United States, children are only learning 20% of the world's remaining languages.

Selected bibliography

• Badten, Adelinda W.; Krauss, Michael E.; & Rubtsova, Ekaterina S. (1971). Ungazighmiit ungipaghaatangit. College: University of Alaska.
• Friedrich, Paul; & Krauss, Michael E. (1969). On the meaning of the Tarascan suffixes of space. Baltimore, Waverly Press.
• Gudgel-Holmes, Dianne; Joseph, Abbie; Jones, Eliza; Kari, James M.; & Krauss, Michael E. (1991). Native place names of the Kantishna drainage. Anchorage, AK: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Alaska Regional Office.
• Harry, Annan N.; & Krauss, Michael E. (1982). In honor of Eyak: The art of Annan Nelson Harry. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska.
• Krauss, Michael E. (n.d.). Na-Dene. College, AK: University of Alaska and M.I.T.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1969). On the classification in the Athapascan, Eyak, and the Tlingit verb. Baltimore: Waverly Press, Indiana University.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1970). Eskimo–Aleut. The Hague: Mouton.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1970). Eyak dictionary. College, AK: University of Alaska.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1970). Eyak texts. College, AK: University of Alaska and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1973). Na-Dene. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Linguistics in North America (pp. 903–978). The Hague: Mouton. (Reprinted as Krauss 1976).
• Krauss, Michael E. (1974). Native peoples and language of Alaska. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, Center for Northern Educational Research, University of Alaska.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1975). Native peoples and languages of Alaska. [Map]. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1976). Na-Dene. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Native languages of the America (pp. 283–358). New York: Plenum. (Reprint of Krauss 1973).
• Krauss, Michael E. (1979). Na-Dene and Eskimo. In L. Campbell & M. Mithun (Eds.), The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1980). Alaska native languages: Past, present, and future. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1980). On the history and use comparative Athapaskan linguistics. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska, Native Language Center.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1982). Native peoples and languages of Alaska. [Map]. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1985). Yupik Eskimo prosodic systems: Descriptive and comparative studies. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1986). Edward Sapir and Athabaskan linguistics. In W. Cowan, M. Foster, & K. Koerner (Eds.), New perspectives in language, culture, and personality (pp. 147–190). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1992). The World's Languages in Crisis. Language 68(1).4-10.
• Krauss, Michael E. (1995). Inuit, Nunait, Nunangit, Yuget, Unangan Tanangin. [Map]. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
• Krauss, Michael E. (2005). Athabaskan Tone. In: Keren Rice and Sharon Hargus, eds, Athabaskan Prosody, ed. by Keren Rice & Sharon Hargus. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 90-272-4783-8
• Krauss, Michael E.; & Leer, Jeff. (1981). Athabaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit sonorants. Alaska Native Language Center research papers (No. 5). Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska, Alaska Native Language Center.
• Krauss, Michael E.; & McGary, Mary J. (1980). Alaska native languages: A bibliographical catalogue. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.

External links

• short bio at YDLI
• Krauss' statement at hearing on S.2688, (Native American Languages Act Amendments Act of 2000) (PDF)