In a school having eight or more students whose primary language is other than English, Alaska law requires the school to have a teacher fluent in that language. Those interested in learning more about Alaskan languages will enjoy reading a new publication by Dr. Krauss entitled Alaska Native Languages, Past, Present and Future available from the Language Center in Fairbanks. His estimate of the future of many Native languages is grim. Of the twenty languages spoken, Dr. Krauss expects only five to live into the second half of the 21st century. The first to go will be Eyak, now spoken by only two or three residents of the Cordova region.
None is younger than sixty.
All speakers of Alaskan Tsimshian, Alaskan Haida, Holikachuk, and Tanana are past forty. No one under twenty speaks Tlingit, Ahta, Ingalik, Koyukon or Han. Each of these languages differs from the other and each has a rich vocabulary, soon without anyone to speak it. However, each language will be preserved in written form as a result of linguistics work already accomplished or still underway at the Alaska Language Center and elsewhere.