Although the phenomenon of language death is as old as the recorded history of the languages of the world, its systematic study is a relatively new field of linguistics and sociolinguistics. A series of important publications clustered around the mid-eighties has confirmed its having become a recognized concern and field of study (Dressler, 1972; Dorian, 1981, 1989; Schmidt, 1985; Hill and Hill, 1986; Taylor, 1992, from an SSILA conference in 1985).