Missiology and Orthography: The Unique Contribution of Christian Missionaries in Devising New Scripts

Abstract

Throughout history and within a number of language communities, orthographies have enabled the initial transcription of spoken languages. This paper examines the few cases in which a person from outside a language community devised a script for a previously unwritten language. In all of the cases studied, the outsiders who devised scripts for the language communities were Christian missionaries. Among the eight cases are several common factors, and in all the cases, devising something unique for the community (rather than introducing something from the missionaries' own culture) was part of a successful strategy for church planting within these groups.