Michael E. Krauss

Michael E. Krauss
Born	August 15, 1934 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Died	August 11, 2019(2019-08-11) (aged 84) Needham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality	American
Scientific career
Fields	Linguistics

Michael E. Krauss (August 15, 1934 – August 11, 2019)

Krauss joined the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1960 and served as director of the Alaska Native Language Center from its inception in 1972 until his retirement in June 2000. He remained 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 the University of Chicago (1953); M.A. from Columbia University, (1955); Certificat d'Etudes supérieures from the University of Paris (1956); and Ph.D. in Linguistics and Celtic from Harvard University (1959). His dissertation was titled "Studies in Irish Gaelic Phonology & Orthography."

Irish

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

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)

Nordic

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

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)

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, 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. 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 was his work on Eyak, which began in 1961.^[2] Eyak was then already the most endangered of the Alaskan languages, and Krauss' work might be considered salvage linguistics today. While some Eyak data had been previously available, they were overlooked by previous scholars, including Edward Sapir. 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.^[3]

Endangered languages

Michael Krauss' lecture at the Linguistic Society of America conference in January 1991 is often cited as a turning point which refocused the field of linguistics on documentation and inspired a systematic global effort to document the world's linguistic diversity. In his lecture, titled "The world's languages in crisis," Dr. Krauss famously warned:^[4]

"Obviously we must do some serious rethinking of our priorities, lest linguistics go down in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated."

Michael Krauss contends^[when?] that in the United States, children are only learning 20% of the world's remaining languages.^[5]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2008)

Selected bibliography

Monographs

• 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). 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. (1970). Eskimo–Aleut. The Hague: Mouton.
• 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. (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. (1985). Yupik Eskimo prosodic systems: Descriptive and comparative studies. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.

Articles

• Hale, Ken; Krauss, Michael; Watahomigie, Lucille J.; Yamamoto, Akira Y.; Craig, Colette; Jeanne, LaVerne M.; England, Nora C; et al. (1992). "Endangered languages". Language. 68 (1): 1–42.
  JSTOR 416368
  .
• Krauss, Michael E. (1964). "The proto-Athapaskan–Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene, I: The phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 30 (2): 118–131.
  S2CID 144615266
  .
• Krauss, Michael E. (1965). "The proto-Athapaskan–Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene, II: The morphology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 31 (1): 18–28.
  S2CID 144404147
  .
• Krauss, Michael E. (1968). "Noun classifiers in the Athapaskan, Eyak, Tlingit, and Haida verb". International Journal of American Linguistics. 34 (3): 194–203.
  S2CID 143582680
  .
• 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. (1975). "St. Lawrence Island Eskimo phonology and orthography". Linguistics 13 [=152] : 39-72.
• 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. (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. (2005). Athabaskan Tone. In:
  ISBN 90-272-4783-8