The
Philippine Postal Corporation will issue a series of 3 souvenir sheets
featuring ethnic weavings and traditional crafts of the Cultural Communities
among whom Summer Institute of Linguistics has served on the occasion of
its 50th Anniversary in the Philippines on February 28,2003.
Fifty
years ago, the first Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) linguists arrived
in the Philippines at the invitation of President Ramon Magsaysay and others.
Twenty years later, SIL achieved the distinction of receiving the Magsaysay
Award for International Understanding. Today SIL is recognized as an international
NGO in consultative status with UNESCO and the Economic and Social Council
of the United Nations.
SIL
has provided linguistic research and vernacular materials in almost 100
languages/dialects of the Philippines. The Department of Education, Translators
Association of the Philippines, and the Linguistic Society of the Philippines
are long-term partners along with UP, De La Salle University, PNU and others.
Numerous community-based associations in language areas where SIL has worked
now carry on similar translation and literacy programs for themselves.
The
50th Anniversary Bibliography of SIL Philippines lists almost 3500 titles
of academic research and literacy publications for the benefit of the minority
peoples of the nation. The work SIL began in the Philippines has spread
to benefit minority groups across Asia and the Pacific. |