Map of Americas Area

We have accepted positions to work with the Americas Area of SIL International. Americas Area consists of the geographical locations of North, Central and South America.

SIL International works with language communities worldwide to facilitate language-based development through research, translation and literacy. SIL International is a non-profit, scientific, educational organization of Christian volunteers that specializes in serving the lesser-known language communities of the world. Its members live among the people of these communities while seeking to understand their cultures and learn their languages. SIL specializes in the application of linguistic research to the literacy and translation needs of the minority language community. In partnership with these communities, SIL helps in development of skills and capacity so that they can preserve their cultures and languages in a way that serves the people best. (More Information is available at www.sil.org.)

Language Statistics in the Americas Area:
• There are about 970 currently spoken indigenous languages in the Americas Area.
• There are about 23 sign languages in the Americas Area.
• There are over 50.5 million people represented by these 993 languages (not including the people claiming an Indo-European based language as their first language, i.e. English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese).
• Over 400 spoken languages still have inadequate access to scripture.
• There are an estimated 30 million people represented by these 400 languages.
• There are close to 1,000 linguists and language workers which we support through our efforts in Dallas as they work with some aspect of these languages, addressing the needs in the language communities .