SIL's scientific, humanitarian, and educational contributions

[Mia Kalish (LFP)]

I musta missed something here. What happened?

Mia

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Rudolph C Troike
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 1:39 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [ILAT] SIL's scientific, humanitarian, and educational
contributions

It is sad to see the radical libels and distortions of SIL's fine work
being recycled after so many years. I have known many SIL members and
visited their sites in Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, and can testify that
many of the politically-motivated distortions about their work can be
matched a thousand-fold by factually accurate reports of outstanding
humanitarian accomplishments they have performed. The attacks on SIL
have often been motivated by personal political agendas. It would be
fair if those who have made such attacks had made any scientific,
educational, or humanitarian contributions comparable to SIL members,
but this has rarely been the case. Few linguists or anthropologists
have been willing to sacrifice as much to study un- or under-documented
languages and produce scientific contributions, as have SIL members.
Much of our knowledge of the world's least-documented languages comes
from SIL research and publication. Politically or ideologically-motivated
attacks on the work of SIL need to be seriously questioned, and the
often distorted claims balanced with attention to the many documented
but often unadvertised contributions that SIL and its members have made
and continue to make to the welfare of indigenous peoples around the
world.


	Rudy Troike
	Department of English
	University of Arizona