The 1973 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding

For the Manobos of Mindanao whom legend credits with illiteracy because a hungry ancestor ate their alphabet, and 35 other Filipino ethnic minorities, the SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS is unlocking doors to knowledge. To this end, among each nonliterate people it now reaches in five Asian and 20 other countries on five continents, the INSTITUTE places a pair of missionary-linguists. Members of an international fraternity of 3,000 scholarly missionaries representing 18 nationalities, they remain until concepts and customs are mastered and the language recorded.

The INSTITUTE pursues its mission of research and service to nonliterate minorities with broad creativity. Employing the science of descriptive linguistics, primers are prepared with glossaries in the tribal tongue, the main regional and national languages and English. Apt pupils are trained as teachers and help conduct literacy classes for adults and youth. Dictionaries, folk stories, songbooks, simple readers on arithmetic, hygiene and Christian scriptures all become vehicles for new ideas that spur social and spiritual change and national integration.

As in other countries, INSTITUTE personnel in the Philippines—numbering 150—cooperate with the departments of Education, Health and Defense, as did their predecessors who first came to work here two decades ago. Filipino linguists and the Institute of National Languages are principal beneficiaries of their research. At their remote posts they regularly administer first aid and assist in epidemic outbreaks. Field workers are sustained and tribal folk given emergency care by pilots, five aircraft and 30 stations of their unique Jungle Aviation and Radio Service.

The SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS was established in 1934 to provide qualified personnel for the growing ministry that William Cameron Townsend began in 1917 by translating the Bible for the Cakchiquel Indians of Central America. A sister organization, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, manages missionary activities. Special INSTITUTE linguistic courses are given at universities in the United States, Australia, Great Britain and West Germany. A jungle training camp in Mexico and a rugged arctic school in Canada ready volunteers for hardship.

Underwritten by no government or denomination, the INSTITUTE is supported voluntarily by individuals, church groups and communities. Foundations and government agencies have given grants for specific projects and lent their facilities. Nonsectarian believers in Christ, members complete their linguistic work in five, ten or more years and go, leaving behind a base for education. Respecting differences of language and culture, they provide avenues for modernization that yet allow individual and communal stability in the transition from isolation to full citizenship.

In electing the SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS to receive the 1973 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes its inspired outreach to nonliterate tribespeople, recording and teaching them to read their own languages and enhancing their participation in the larger community of man.