ELL: Do not be fooled by the alphabet soup - New SIL alias

[endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au]

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From: maia at acd.ufrj.br (Marcus Antonio Rezende Maia)
Subject: ELL: Do not be fooled by the alphabet soup - New SIL alias
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:09:50 -0300 (GRNLNDST)
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 Hi, Diego,
 Sorry, I have nothing else to say about the obvious: The truth is SIL and NTM
 are not the same organization and yet they share pretty much the same
 goals. Years ago I was in a federal committee who investigated missionary
 agencies in Brazil. We amassed lots of evidence of all kinds about the
 purposes and actions of these organizations in Brazil. Reports were written,
 even audiences in the National Congress were staged and yet no positive
 action was taken as usual. Again, Chomsky seems to be right: how come we know
 so little if we have so much evidence? Orwell's problem.  I couldsend you a
 list with over 100 entries, but maybe people should read a more recent book
 published by respected investigative journalists Gerard Colby and Charlotte
 Dennett in 1995: "Thy Will Be Done - The conquest of the Amazon: Nelson
 Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil". Linguists would surely advance
 if they ceased to be fooled by the alphabet soup...
 Best,
 Marcus Maia
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 Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 10:54:10 +0800 (WST)
 From: Denny Moore <moore at amazon.com.br>
 To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
 Subject: ELL: new name
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 In answer to the query by J. Diego Quesada-- there is a missionary group of
 long-standing presence in Brazil and other Latin American countries which
 is called, in Portuguese, Miss. Novas Tribos, which would be, I imagine,
 Nuevas Tribos in Spanish.  They are more fundamentalist, more out-front,
 and less technically prepared than the SIL.  SIL collaborates with the New
 Tribes Mission (=Novas Tribos) and also with others, such as MEVA, in
 Brazil.  Derbyshire, for example, worked in an area controlled by MEVA
 (which, as described by some visitors, seems to be a sort of cultural
 neutron bomb site-- speakers and language left alive but traditional
 culture vaporized).  One possibility is that the change Diego is seeing is
 this different organization, not merely a name change (which would be like
 Oldsmobile changing its name to Chevrolet).  A couple of years ago there
 was a name change in Brasil, when SIL listed itself as the Sociedade
 Internacional de Lingu.stica, which caused much amusement among Brazilian
 linguists.  I don't know if this name is still in use.

 That's all this ordinary sinner knows about it.

 Denny Moore
 Museu Goeldi
 Bel.m, Brazil


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