Signing up to learn a new language always brings some challenges with it. A huge time investment and lots of self-discipline will always be required, as well a healthy tolerance for being seen as stupid or strange as a result of inevitable blunders. Other challenges are language-specific and can...
Language
Thursday, June 6, 2024
It is a helpless feeling to look into an indigenous person’s face and realize you have no way of communicating. The team enters as learners in the community because of their inability to communicate. Culture and Language Acquisition (CLA) is their first task.
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Tuesday, February 27, 2024
The genius of language is precisely its capacity to express thoughts which the people have not heard before.
—Eugene Nida
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
“All languages and dialects are bearers of identity.” John Edwards: Sociolinguistics, a very short introduction
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Several months ago I was sitting in my office with my language helper doing another language session. In this session we were exploring some of the animistic aspects of the local culture. As the session progressed, I began asking more questions about the local animistic parts of the culture.
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
"Undoing Babel would imply eliminating linguistic difference and giving everyone a single language to speak. In fact, the gospel does something quite different—uniting people in one community whilst retaining their different ethnic, social and cultural differences." —Ian Paul
Tuesday, October 4, 2022
“When a European has been living for two or three years among strangers, he is sure to be fully convinced that he knows all about them; when he has been ten years or so amongst them, if he is an observant man, he finds that he knows very little about them, and so begins to learn” —(R. H....
Friday, September 16, 2022
“Why don’t you just teach the people Spanish rather than trying to learn their language?” This question is a common one when people hear that we are spending so much time learning the indigenous language. So why would my team spend 3+ years to learn the Tarahumara language? The main reason is...
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
I often hear an objection: “Wait a second. Are you saying missionaries shouldn’t try to share the good news about Jesus until they reach a high level of language ability?” No, I’m not saying that. In fact, I’m actually making a more startling claim: for all practical purposes, we simply ...
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
"Because of the intense drudgery involved in learning language, nothing short of whole-hearted, sacrificial support for language learning—making concrete plans and expecting intense commitment until high-level mastery of the language is achieved—will enable new missionaries to master their...