Re: The things one finds

Who knows about things like the CIA connection and all that nonsense.

But yes, it's common, public knowledge that the SIL is a branch of
the Wyclife Bible Translators.

And yes, there's a strong Fundamentalist Christian basis for its
work.
So yes, many dying languages are being studied and catalogued
exclusively by people who have a very politically incorrect "ulterior
motive" for doing so: they believe everyone should be able to read the
Bible in their own native language.

I mean, look at the first paragraph of the SIL's creed on its web
page:

"We believe that language is one of God's most important gifts to
man..."

Boom.  God.  Right there.

For better or for worse, since the 1950s, the vast majority of
mainstream academic linguists have had far better things to do than
muck about in the jungle or on the islands or in the tundra, learning
obscure languages before they die.  They've had a much more
interesting and profitable time inventing ever more abstruse
mathematically based theories of English (but presumably also
universal) grammar, and carefully insulating those theories from
assaults by actual data *coughCHOMSKYcough*.

So, evil fundamentalist tools of the Establishment though they may
be, the SIL have been the only ones who care enough to learn, for
example, the Dogrib language of the Northwest Territories...

In his book _The Rise and Fall of Languages_, Dixon acknowledges and
laments this state of affairs.

The SIL Creed:

"We believe that language is one of God's most important gifts to
man, and of all human characteristics, language is the most distinctly
human and the most basic. Without language, culture and civilization
would be impossible.

"We also believe that any language is capable of being a vehicle for
complicated human interaction and complex thought, and can be the
basis for a complex culture and civilization.

"Therefore, all languages deserve respect and careful study.
As the most uniquely human characteristic a person has, a person's
language is associated with his self-image. Interest in and
appreciation of a person's language is tantamount to interest in and
appreciation of the person himself.

"All languages are worthy of preservation in written form by means of
grammars, dictionaries, and written texts. This should be done as part
of the heritage of the human race.

"Every language group deserves to see its language in print and to
have some literature written in it.

"Minority language groups within a larger nation deserve the
opportunity of learning to speak, read, and write the national
language."

Of course, by "some literature" they mostly mean "The New Testament."
 But as I said, for the most part, they're the only ones who can be
bothered with these little languages at all.

Ed Heil ------------------------------- edheil@postmark.net
"Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything
   that's even _remotely_ true!"           -- Homer Simpson

Bryan Maloney wrote:

> I was trying to connect to the "PIR", which is a protein database, but I
> couldn't remember the URL.  Anyway, I put in "http://www.pir.org/", which
> took me someplace completely different.  One of the files on that site
> purports to be a detailed analysis of the Summer Institute of Linguistics
> (one of my favorite online sources).  The URL of that file is
> "http://www.pir.org/gw/sil.txt".  Does anybody know if it's totally
> whacko or if the analysis is on the level?
>