ALASKA native languages are most likely to be extinct or dormant by the end of the 21st century unless action is taken to save them, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing a report released by a committee of the state in the most northwestern part of the US.

The Anchorage Daily News yesterday quoted this year’s report of the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council as saying Alaska native languages were in a “linguistic emergency”.

“If current rates of decline were to continue as they have been since the 1970s, all Alaska Native languages may lose their last fluent speakers by the end of the 21st century,” said the report.

The council, established by the state legislature in 2012 to preserve and restore Alaska native languages, urged Alaskan Governor Bill Walker to make a state policy to preserve, promote and develop the languages.

At the time of statehood in 1959, there were 20 indigenous languages spoken within the boundaries of Alaska, all of which, in addition to English, were recognised as official languages of the state.

Most of the languages belong to one of two large language families – Eskimo-Aleut and Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit.

The council report said all of the Alaska native languages had “suffered an ongoing loss in the number of speakers over the past 40 years”.

The Tsetsa’ut language lost its last fluent speaker in the early 1930s, and another language, Eyak, lost its last fluent speaker in 2008, it said.

The council warned that the number of people who actually spoke the languages had fallen, though the Alaska native population had grown since 1980.

While the central Yup’ik and Inupiaq were the two most spoken Alaska native languages, other languages, such as Haida, Tsimshian, Han and Upper Tanana, now had fewer than 10 speakers each in Alaska, it said. – Bernama, January 22, 2018.