Communities developing resources and competencies for using their languages
Foundational understanding for language development work of all kinds
Publications, fonts and computer tools for language development, translation and research
SIL offers training in disciplines relevant to sustainable language development.
7,105 languages are spoken or signed. CLICK for map of world languages & regional websites.
SIL's dedication to language development past and present
Language is fundamental to one's identity and to a sense of community and personal value.
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Recognizing the importance of this cultural tradition, literacy workers encouraged children of the Huallaga Quechua of Peru to collect riddles. As a result, seventy riddles were printed in the Quechua language in a booklet. A nine-year-old boy fromREAD MORE >>
What if vital health information was not available in your language?
When a cholera epidemic ravaged many parts of Chad, the Federation of Guera Language Associations produced plastic-coated information posters in several languages.
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But not just any test. This test measured the impact that instruction beginning in their mother tongue has had on their learning. Following the assessment of more than 400 students, the test results
Children were invited to spend a week at a camp, studying and relating to other children in their mother tongue.
This picture demonstrates the obvious joy and enthusiasm that the students have during a lesson presented in Jamaican Creole. This kind of zeal on the part of students indicates that the Bilingual Education Program is doing something right.
One proud CLAVE graduate recently wrote this letter of thanks to her instructors and described how the training she received from CLAVE equipped her for her position as a regional coordinator with the Peruvian National Schools.
She slapped the illustrated poster once more and then turned to her audience. "Flies carry disease...this is one of the reasons why your children get sick." Twenty teachers from eight different Papua New Guinea languages were learning how to produce health-related literacy materials.READ MORE >>
The Ethnologue lists 130 signed languages, but the number of identified sign languages continues to climb with ongoing sociolinguistic survey of Deaf communities around the world.
