Faith, Mighty Faith: Language Analysis and Faithful Comrades: Tales from the Mountaintops and Valleys Below: #7

In the summer of 1972, Dr. Ken and Evie Pike came to Kathmandu for a workshop in linguistics. From the very beginning, Wycliffe understood the importance of formal language analysis as an essential part of making an accurate translation of the Scriptures. You may remember the linguistic training we received at the Norman summer school and that the Pikes were involved in that, as well as our wedding. That training continued on the field as Dr. Pike, tenured faculty at the University of Michigan and one of the original members of Wycliffe, came to help all the language teams in Nepal analyze the perplexities in our very different languages.

Because of this emphasis on linguistic analysis before and during Bible translation and literacy work, one of my jobs was to  analyze the phonology while Bill was working on the grammar. The Tharu phonology seemed very confusing and unpredictable. When you learn a language, you learn first how to pronounce a particular sound in a word or sentence. For instance, in the word "dogs," the s sounds like z because it comes after a voiced "d" consonant. Identifying and predicting sounds is what phonology does.

However, in Tharu there was a schwa, an "uh" sound, that seems to come and go randomly, and we didn't know when to use it and when not. Sometimes Kissan used it and sometimes he didn't--in the same sentence. Kissan was very patient with us and eventually we discovered that it helped predict an event in at the discourse level in the language. If that doesn't make sense, just know that it was that hard for us too--and we'd had 20 semester hours training in linguistics before arrival!

We had many people praying back "home" in the US. Without their daily prayers I'm not sure what would have become of us. It's one of the essential things every missionary must have--a good prayer support team. We heard from some who were praying for us at specific days and times, not knowing our needs, and yet later finding out how He miraculously met and cared for us in difficult times and situations at the exact time they were led to pray. The body of Christ is an amazing, powerful force of love and healing.

You also need to know that we were surrounded by the most amazing group of missionaries we have ever known. Soon Wycliffe/SIL in Nepal was working in 30 language groups in Nepal. This meant about 100 field members were needed to make things work. These were people we came to love and respect deeply. Here's a picture of our early days together. Bill and I are in the middle left, not standing together. Each of these people could write their own stories similar to those I've shared. Some have told of repeated, remarkable encounters and miracles. Below are links for books by Gary Shepherd and David Watters, if you'd like to read more; warmly recommended.

Angel Tracks in the Himalayas by Gary Shepherd
At the Foot of the Snows by David E. Watters