SIL International is a worldwide non-profit, Christian organization with the main purpose to study, develop and document lesser-known languages for the purpose of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting world literacy and aiding minority language development. It provides resources in language research through Ethnologue.com. SIL's philosophy is that "no language is insignificant".

SIL has more than 6,000 members from over 50 countries.

SIL International is also said to be an evangelical missionary organisation, closely affiliated with the Wycliffe Bible Translators and collaborating with the New Tribes Mission. Critics say they were involved in the fifties in displacing indigenous communities in the Amazon basin in the interest of large oil companies.

History

SIL International, originally the Summer Institute of Linguistics, started as a small summer training session in Arkansas in 1934 to train missionaries of what later became Wycliffe Bible Translators in basic linguistic, anthropological and translation principles. The founder was William Cameron Townsend (1896-1982), a former Disciples of Christ missionary to Guatemala.

From the 1950s to 1987, SIL was hosted by the University of Oklahoma in Norman. After a controversy evolved about SIL's missionary activities and their alleged collusion with military dictatorships in Latin America, SIL was expelled and is now hosted by the University of Texas at Arlington.

One of the students at this first summer institute was Kenneth L. Pike (1912–2000), who was to become the foremost figure in the history of SIL. He served as SIL's President from 1942–1979 and then as President Emeritus until his death in 2000. He worked at the University of Michigan for many years. Dr. Pike was nominated fifteen consecutive years (1982-1996) for the Nobel Peace Prize.

SIL's current president is Carolyn P. Miller, who took the office in 1999 and participates in the linguistics program at Houghton College.

SIL International celebrated its 70 years of existence in June 2004.

International recognition

SIL's work has received appreciation and recognition in a number of international settings. In 1973, SIL was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding. This foundation honors outstanding individuals and organizations working in Asia who manifest greatness of spirit in service to the peoples of Asia. Other notable examples include a UNESCO award and the 1979 International Reading Association Literacy Award for literacy work in Papua, New Guinea.

SIL holds formal consultative status with UNESCO and United Nations, and has been publically recognized by UNESCO for their work in many parts of Asia. SIL also holds non-government organisation status in many countries. SIL provides instructors and instructional materials for linguistics programs at several major institutions of higher learning around the world.

In the USA these include Biola University, Moody Bible Institute, Houghton College, University of North Dakota, Northwest Christian College, Bryan College, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Oregon, and Dallas Theological Seminary.

Other universities with SIL programmes include Trinity Western University in Canada and Charles Darwin University in Australia.

At the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunisia in November 2005, SIL released a demo CD with free and open-source software.

SIL has approximately 5,300 members working with over 1,000 languages around the world. Fieldwork in many countries has led to published results.

The work of SIL has resulted in over 11,000 technical publications, all of which are listed in the SIL Bibliography. Most of these are a reflection of linguistic fieldwork.

A particular focus of SIL is to help document the lesser-known languages of the world, including endangered languages. SIL endeavours to share both the data and the results of analysis in order to contribute to the overall knowledge of language.

Another focus of SIL is literacy work, particularly in indigenous languages. SIL assists local, regional, and national agencies that are developing

One of the most interesting contributions of SIL to the International community is the International Museum of Culture. Located in Texas, it was developed by linguists and anthropologists associated with SIL International for the purpose of celebrating peoples of diverse cultures in an effort to promote greater appreciation and understanding of cultural differences.

Controversy

Linguistics

SIL has been accused of going against general linguistic community consensus (and contrary to the opinion of the majority of the speakers themselves in some cases) as to what constitutes a separate language (as opposed to a dialect). More notable are the classification of Flemish and several dialects of Swedish as separate languages with unique language codes. In cases like Scanian, the dialect does not meet the minimum criteria for mutual unintelligibily from Standard Swedish. SIL also attributes separate language status to "Yinglish", an English vernacular spoken by some Jewish Americans which is to some degree influenced by the Yiddish and Hebrew languages. Some of these classifications don't meet SIL's own professed criteria for classification.

Also, SIL's estimates about the number of the speakers of the languages is inconsistent with other sources. For example, in SIL's Ethnologue, the speakers of Persian and Azerbaijani languages in Iran are estimated as 36% and 37%, respectively. In the CIA factbook, these percentages are estimated as 51% and 24%.

Missionary activities

SIL has been accused of being involved in moving indigenous populations in South America from their native lands to make way for exploitation schemes of North American and European oil corporations. The most well-known example is the case of the Huaorani people in Ecuador, which resulted in many deaths and the moving of the people into reservations controlled by the missionaries.

In 1975, thirty anthropologists signed the "The Denouncement of Pátzcuaro", alleging that SIL was a "tool of imperialism", linked to the CIA and "divisions within the communities that constitutes a hindrance to their organisation and the defence of their communal rights".

In 1979, SIL was officially expelled from Mexico, but continued to be active in that country. (Clarke, p. 182) In 1980, SIL was officially expelled from Ecuador (Yashar 2005, p. 118), although a token presence remained. Remnants of SIL presence were protested in every subsequent Indian uprising. (Cleary/Steigenga 2004, p. 37) In the early 1990s, the newly formed organisation of indigenous people of Ecuador CONAIE once more demanded the expulsion of SIL from the country. (Yashar 2005, p. 146)

At a conference of the Inter-American Indian Institute in Merida, Yucatan, in November 1980, delegates denounced the Summer Institute of Linguistics for using a scientific name to conceal its religious agenda and capitalist worldview that was alien to indigenous traditions. (Bonner 1999, p. 20)

Victor Halterman of SIL has explained SIL methods to change traditional patterns of livelihood:

When we learn of the presence of an uncontacted group, we move into the area, build a strong shelter — say of logs — and cut paths radiating from it into the forest. We leave gifts along these paths — knives, axes, mirrors, the kind of things the Indians can't resist — and sometimes they leave gifts in exchange. After a while the relationship develops. Maybe they are mistrustful at first but in the end they stop running when we show, and we get together and make friends.

We have to break their dependency on us next. Naturally they want to go on receiving all these desirable things we've been giving them, and sometimes it comes as a surprise when we explain that from now on if they want to possess them they must work for money. We don't employ them but we usually fix them up with something to do on the local farms. They settle down at it when they realise there's no going back."

That work at the "local farm" often times amounts to slavery was (indirectly) admitted by Halterman when he mentioned that "abuses" sometimes occur. (Pettifer/Bradley, p. 105)

SIL was allegedly financed initially by expatriate coffee processors in Guatemala, and later by the Rockefellers, Standard Oil, the timber company Weyerhauser, and USAID. By the 1980s, was expelled from Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama, and restricted in Colombia and Peru. (Cleary/Steigenga 2004, p. 36)

Today, according to SIL's annual report, funds

John Perkins provides an example of the criticism, he notes rumors of SIL perfidy, and cites the Ecudorian president's criticism, he wrote:

Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), an evangelical missionary group from the United States, of sinister collusion with the oil companies. I was familiar with SIL missionaries from my Peace Corps days. The organization had entered Ecuador under the pretext of studying, recording, and translating indigenous languages.

SIL had been working extensively with the Huaorani tribe in the Amazon basin area, during the early years of oil exploration, when a disturbing pattern emerged. Whenever seismologists reported to corporate headquarters that a certain region had characteristics indicating a high probability of oil beneath the surface, SIL went in and encouraged the indigenous people to move from that land, onto missionary reservations; there they would receive free food, shelter, clothes, medical treatment, and missionary-style education. The condition was that they had to deed their lands to the oil companies.

.. Rumors abounded that SIL missionaries used an assortment of underhanded techniques to abandon their homes and move to the missions. A frequently repeated story was that they had donated food heavily laced with laxatives — then offered medicines to cure the diarrhea epidemic. Throughout Huaorani territory, SIL airdropped false-bottomed food baskets containing tiny radio transmitters; receivers at highly sophisticated communications stations, manned by U.S. military personnel at the army base in Shell, tuned into these transmitters. Whenever a member of the tribe was bitten by a poisonous snake or became seriously ill, an SIL representative arrived with antivenom or the proper medicines — often in oil company helicopters." (John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, p.142)

(The president of Ecuador, Jaime Roldós,) openly accused the Summer Institute of Linguistics of colluding with the oil companies, and then, in an extremely bold — perhaps reckless — move, he ordered SIL out of the country. He died in a fiery helicopter crash on May 24, 1981. Osvaldo Hurtado took over as Ecuador’s president. He reinstated the Summer Institute of Linguistics and their oil company sponsors." (op. cit. p.156f.)

SIL has responsed to the allegations by Perkins in this official response:

John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (..), makes a number of egregious errors in fact and presents false statements about SIL's activities in Ecuador in the 1950-60s. The comments are based on rumors that have never been substantiated and are contrary to documented eyewitness accounts. Throughout its 70 year history, SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) has been an active advocate and supporter of indigenous language communities in Latin America and around the world.

SIL entered Ecuador in 1953 in response to the expressed invitation of then President Galo Plaza to study, record and work on translation of materials into indigenous languages. SIL performed the work it was invited to do and maintained a full reporting relationship with Ecuador's Ministry of Education through 1982. At the urging and support of many indigenous communities, respected journalists, and civic leaders the government granted visas to certain SIL members to continue their activities until work was completed in 1992. SIL's linguistic research work was donated to local universities and is a matter of public record. Today a number of indigenous groups in eastern Ecuador enjoy their protected land as a result, in part, to SIL's advocacy before the government.

Perkins contends that SIL worked under the sponsorship and in support of oil companies in the Amazon. This is absolutely untrue. SIL has had no involvement with oil exploration and has never had any agreements with oil companies or any other parties to promote oil exploration. In fact, SIL members were known to have intervened to prevent violence between indigenous communities and oil company workers. Further, the accusation by Perkins that SIL has received support from the Rockefellers in Amazonia is also false. SIL has never received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Ethnologue and the SIL code

Main article: Ethnologue

The Ethnologue, published by SIL, assigns three-letter codes to languages. The 14th edition, published in 2000, included 7148 language codes which generally did not match the ISO 639-2 codes.(Some of the reasons for these differences are discussed in a paper on the "Mapping Between ISO 639 and the SIL Ethnologue: Principles Used and Lessons Learned", .)

The 15th edition, published in 2005, includes 7299 codes and these updated codes mostly match those in the new ISO 639-3. The differences between the codes in the 14th and 15th editions are outlined in (and the entire list from the 15th edition can be downloaded from ).

Criticism of SIL activities

• Carmelo Ruiz: Book review of Thy Will Be Done, The Conquest of the Amazon by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett (Harper Collins 1995, ISBN 0-06016-764-5). Background of the work of SIL in the Amazon region.
• Rodrigo Borja Cevallos: (Rodrigo Borja was the president of Ecuador at that time.)
• Cedric Muhammad: (BlackElectorate, May 13th, 2001)
• Nikolas Kozloff: Robertson Only the Latest Controversy In a Long and Bizarre History (Council On Hemispheric Affairs, September 19th, 2005)

Other sites

• JAARS has its headquarters in Waxhaw, North Carolina. Its purpose is to provide technical support services to Wycliffe Bible Translators and to SIL International.
• Kittipong Thavevong: (The Nation, Bangkok, via the German presence at the World Summit on the Information Society)

References

• Ruth Margaret Brend , Kenneth Lee Pike (eds.): The Summer Institute of Linguistics: Its Works and Contributions (Walter De Gruyter 1977), ISBN 9-02793-355-3.
• Gerard Colby, Charlotte Dennett: Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (Harper Collins 1995), ISBN 0-06016-764-5. This book contains allegations of Rockefeller's use of American missionaries, and in particular, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, who cooperated in conducting surveys, transporting CIA agents and indirectly assisting in the genocide of tribes in the Amazon basin.
• John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2004), ISBN 1-57675-301-8. Contains several references to SIL missionary activities and displacement of indigenous peoples in South America.
• W. A Willibrand: Oklahoma Indians and the "Summer Institute of Linguistics" (1953).
• Søren Hvalkof, Peter Aaby (eds.): Is God an American? An Anthropological Perspective on the Missionary Work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (A Survival International Document, International Workgroup for Indigenous Affairs, Copenhagen/London 1981), ISBN 8-79807-172-6.
• Eni Pucinelli Orlandi: Sprache, Glaube, Macht: Ethik und Sprachenpolitik / Language, Faith, Power: Ethics and Language Policy. In: Brigitte Schlieben-Lange (ed.): Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 116, Katechese, Sprache, Schrift (University of Siegen / J.B. Metzler 1999) The author presents a discourse analysis of the practices of SIL.
• Laurie K. Hart: The Story of the Wycliffe Translators: Pacifying the Last Frontiers. In: NACLA's Latin America & Empire Report, vol. VII, no. 10 (1973). This article describes SIL's collaboration with US oil corporations and military governments in South America in the 1950s and 1960s.
• Michael Erard: How Linguists and Missionaries Share a Bible of 6,912 Languages. In: New York Times, July 19th, 2005.
• Peter Gow: An Amazonian Myth and Its History (Oxford University Press 2001), ISBN 0-19-924195-3 / ISBN 0-19-924196-1.
• Colin Clarke: Class, Ethnicity, and Community in Southern Mexico: Oaxaca's Peasentries (Oxford University Press 2001), ISBN 0198233876.
• Arthur Bonner: We Will Not Be Stopped: Evangelical Persecution, Catholicism, and Zapatismo in Chiapas, Mexico (Universal Publishers 1999), ISBN 1581128649.
• Edward L. Cleary, Timothy J. Steigenga: Resurgent Voice in Latin America: Indigenous Peoples, Political Mobilization, and Religious Change (Rutgers University Press 2004), ISBN 0813534615.
• David Stoll: Fishers of Men or Founders of Empire? The Wycliffe Bible Translators in Latin America. A US Evangelical Mission in the Third World (London, Zed Press 1983), ISBN 0862321115. Criticism of SIL missionary activities.
• Norman Lewis: The Missionaries (London, Secker and Warburg 1988; McGraw-Hill Companies 1989), ISBN 0070376131.
• Richard Pettifer, Julian Bradley: Missionaries (BBC Publications 1991), ISBN 0-563-20702-7.
• Deborah J. Yashar: Contesting Citizenship In Latin America. The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge (Cambridge University Press 2005), ISBN 0-521-82746-9.
• Castro Mantilla, Maria Dolores: El Trabajo del ILV en Bolivia, 1954—1980, Informe Final (The Work of SIL in Bolivia, 1954-1980, Final Report; La Paz, Ministerio de Desarollo Humano 1996). This report in Spanish contains a detailed chart of SIL activities in Latin American countries. SIL

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