What we do among the nomatsiguenga also happens in Colombia, in Brazil, in Mexico. That is the network.
SIL Global has spent decades building tools for work with languages. The question few ask is: how does that tool reach a translator in the jungle of Peru, or a literacy team in Colombia?
That is exactly the task. We are not the ones who write the code, nor the ones in the field with each community. We are the bridge: those who know both shores and can speak to each one in its own language.
SIL Global has been carrying out a pioneering ministry for more than 90 years — one that had never been done before at this scale — carrying our call from the Great Commission to indigenous peoples and building the entire linguistic platform they need in order to flourish. Education has been the pillar of this ministry, because without biblical materials and teaching, people will not come to know the Lord or grow: without Bibles this cannot be achieved, without literacy no one will be able to read them, and without alphabets they cannot even begin.
7,000+
indigenous languages in the world
1,000+
of those languages are spoken in the Americas
≈400
projects with some kind of work under way in the indigenous language
An engineer has a place here too.
I coordinate Language Technology for all of the Americas at SIL Global: I bring together the teams that carry these tools to indigenous communities — in Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and beyond — and help them use them with confidence.
Every language matters equally, but not every team has the same tools. My work is to close that gap: so that a team of three people in the jungle has access to the same technology as a large, well-funded team — because the language of a small community matters to God exactly as much as that of a large one.
That is why I am not content just to solve what is urgent. I think about what each team will need five years from now, and I work so that, when that moment comes, the road is already built.
That is the work I enjoy most: although I love the chance to visit the different teams in the jungle or the mountains, even without doing so it encourages me to help build the road and anticipate the difficulties before someone else has to face them. A well-built road keeps serving long after it is finished — teams and communities I will never even get to meet.
Bible translation
Software that shortens the translation process and improves comprehension for speakers
Artificial intelligence
Tools that assist the translator without replacing their cultural and linguistic judgment
Scripture engagement
Resources so communities not only have the Bible, but use it
Media and audio
Tools to record, edit and distribute the Bible in audio in indigenous languages
Giving a language a voice is more than translating it.
I am part of Language Development, an area of SIL Global that exists for exactly this: to help other mission efforts across Central and South America develop their own languages. We help create valid materials — biblical and social — and build the reading comprehension needed to put them to use.
We do not come to impose anything. We place ourselves at the service of those already working with indigenous groups, whether or not they belong to our organization, with the same conviction as always: whoever can read their own Bible — and other materials — can grow.
This work also affirms the dignity of indigenous people today: whoever can read, can stand up for themselves. Every language matters, every person matters to God — and that is why they matter to us too.
My work among the nomatsiguenga, at the BMA, is part of that larger project. What I learn with them informs what I share with the team. And what the team develops, I can bring back to the field.
Literacy
Materials and methods so speakers learn to read in their own language
Lexicography
Dictionaries and word lists that document the language
Writing system
Development and standardization of the writing system
Workshops and training
Training local leaders who carry the work forward from within
About SIL Global: an organization with decades of experience in applied linguistics in the service of indigenous peoples worldwide. It has no denominational flag: it works with missions of different traditions that share one goal — that every people have access to the Word of God in its own language. Pepe and Miriam have served with SIL Global since 2013 and 2018, respectively.