AS AWARENESS OF and concern for the loss of linguistic and cultural diversity has grown in the last two decades (eg, Craig 1992; Fishman 1988, 1990, 1991, 2000, 2001; Hale 1992a, 1992b; Jeanne 1992; Krauss 1992; Nettle and Romaine 2000; Watahomigie and Yamamoto 1992), so too has interest in finding a way to evaluate the level of endangerment of the world’s languages. A desire for a comprehensive description of the state of the linguistic world has developed from research on how many languages there are and where they are located to investigation of their transmission, use, and preservation (Brenzinger et al. 2003; Dorian 1989; Fishman 1991). The World Languages Review describes this agenda as follows:“How can we describe the sociolinguistic situation of the languages of the world in a way that lets us assess the situation of each language and at the same time put forward recommendations or patterns of action to help preserve the linguistic and cultural heritage of humanity?”(Martí et al. 2005, 1).

Categorization of the level of endangerment of a language is not a simple conceptual task, as it represents the intersection and interplay of many individual, group, and societal factors (Hyltenstam and Stroud 1996). Thus labels such as “endangered” or “highly endangered” entail constellations of factors relating to language use, language attitudes, language proficiency, population, location, socioeconomic status, and level of education among others. Theoretical formulations of how these factors relate to and affect each other are still developing. At the same time, more programmatic plans of action for preservation and revival (eg, Crystal 2000; Fishman 1990, 1991; Grenoble and Whaley 1998; King 2001; Nettle and Romaine 2000) are also being proposed and implemented. Fishman’s Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS)(Fishman 1991) provides the best known summation of the interplay of language transmission, language attitudes, and language use in language maintenance or shift to date; however, it doesn’t provide a detailed set of factors to be evaluated or a well-defined way to measure progress in efforts to reverse language shift. UNESCO (Brenzinger et al. 2003) has more recently developed another comprehensive framework that is designed to provide evaluative measures, outlining nine factors in evaluating the level of endangerment of a language (intergenerational language transmission, absolute numbers of speakers, proportion