■ ■Acknowledgements
The team of regional editors and their assistant contributors prepared this vast project over several months and working to a tight schedule; inevitably, the work involved constant consultation. The project was ably managed at UNESCO by my colleagues in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section, to whom I as General Editor am indebted for much wise guidance. The named authors of the regional chapters have collaborated wonderfully well, and at any time of the day or night, somewhere in the world, they were working away, teasing out apparently intractable problems and inconsistencies and keeping me abreast of their progress.
They in turn have been greatly helped by a number of contributors, among whom I should particularly like to mention Gustavo Solis Fonseca, Tulio Rojas Curieux, Denny Moore and Bruna Franchetto, who have all made significant contributions to our knowledge of the language situation in South America. In Central America, too, a team of helpers worked on the project; they are named in the appropriate chapter. Of the regional editors, Tapani Salminen deserves special praise for his vigilance in spotting inconsistencies and lacunae between regions, and in helping to solve methodological and terminological issues. We have all learned a great deal from each other.
