Sil International: 8 books

How does a language community sustain their language in the face of ever-increasing forces of language shift? This volume, both a textbook and a handbook, is the result of ten years of reflection by the authors in light of SIL International’s 80 years of fieldwork in local language communities. Using...

While investigating endangered languages, many researchers become interested in developing literacy for these languages. However, often their linguistic training has not provided practical guidance in this area. This book, with contributions by experienced practitioners, helps fill this gap. Both...

Juba Arabic is an Arabic creole closely related to Kinubi. It began developing in the Equatoria Region of what is now South Sudan over 100 years ago, and spread widely, now being the spoken lingua franca of the region. It has become so well established that expatriates working in Equatoria often find...

African Friends and Money Matters grew out of frustrations that Westerners experience when they travel and work in Africa. Africans have just as many frustrations relating to Westerners in their midst. Each manages money, time, and relationships in very different ways, often creating friction and...

Over the past thirty years, scholars have made significant advances in understanding how human communication functions. They have moved from looking for meaning in texts alone to seeing texts as providing clues that lead hearers to discover the speaker’s intended meaning. Hearers use other inputs...

Can a culture have a theme that unifies seemingly unrelated practices? In this volume, Collins suggests that Maya-Mam customs as different as constructing a house, staying healthy, seeking God, disciplining children, agreeing to a contract, or just speaking the language, all originate from the same...

How people make sense of illness is, in part, culturally determined. Existing community beliefs and presuppositions are organized as cultural models, which “make meaning” of new situations such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These cultural constructions can also contribute to the spread of the epidemic....

Understanding Language Choices is an introductory textbook for anyone studying the motivations behind language use choices. It provides an introduction into the numerous factors, both internal and external, influencing such choices in a speech community: language attitudes, language learning, identity,...