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Ken Pike
By contributing writer, Diana Won
"I have an early memory of being in Mom's arms and wanting her to sing
me...'There Were Ninety and Nine that Safely Lay.' The missing sheep touched
my heart, a feeling that later grew to a concern for tiny unreached people
groups. These preliterate peoples were desperately in need of alphabets,
dictionaries, written literature of their own, and Bible translation."1
And so Kenneth Lee Pike would grow to preeminent distinction as a pioneer
linguist and Christian scholar whose multifaceted career has served as
an integral force behind the development of SIL (Wycliffe's sister organization)
and the cause of Bible translation.
Committed to the study of less familiar languages and the advancement
of Scripture translation into those tongues, SIL promotes linguistic research,
language development, translation, literacy, along with other educational
services. One of the first students of SIL - then, Camp Wycliffe - Pike
has provided over 60 years of invaluable original contributions to theoretical
and applied linguistics, and thereby to Christian labor for preliterate
societies.
Born in 1912 into a large family in Connecticut, Pike took his very first
steps in language study at Gordon College in Massachusetts where he studied
New Testament Greek for four years. After this initial study, Pike pursued
becoming a missionary to China, but his application was denied. Disappointed
over the rejection, Pike ended up studying another year at Gordon where
he providentially ran into a friend who encouraged him to go to Camp Wycliffe.
Cameron Townsend started a camp in Arkansas to train
Bible translators in 1934 and Pike attended the camp a year after. That
summer was a turning point in his life.
Pike learned from Townsend (who saw great promise in Pike), grammatical
analysis, and from other noted teachers, anthropology and phonetics. It
was in this last topic Pike found himself immersed in phonetics for more
than a decade, and many scholarship trainers received tremendous help
from him.
Not long after his involvement at Camp Wycliffe, Townsend suggested he
write a book on phonetics. Pike thought it ludicrous and gave it up after
a feeble attempt. One day soon, however, he broke his left leg trying
to help some men carry hundred-pound grain sacks. In only answer to his
prayer question, "Where have I sinned?" came the reminder that Pike had
refused to write phonetics. Bedridden, Pike began writing eight hours
a day, producing what became the first half of his book Phonemics (1947).
It would help people develop alphabets.
Pike was not only as a researching linguist and academic writer,he and
his wife Evelyn (herself a competent linguist) lived with the San Miguel
Miztec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico for several years and helped to translate
the NT for them. The linguists divided their time between teaching new
recruits at Camp Wycliffe and studying the Miztec language and culture.
Upon completion of the Miztec New Testament in 1951, Pike assisted SIL's
field linguists with their language analyses in the summers or during
periods of leave from the university. He became the first president of
SIL from 1942 to 1979.
Pike enabled the SIL group to develop linguistic expertise in almost 1600
languages world-wide in a myriad of ways. Atlantic Monthly (June 1995)
called Pike "the man who, surely, has done the most to blur the distinction
between Bible translators and academic linguists."
His towering monuments of remaining professional achievements are still
influencial today. With a lifetime authorship including 38 books and over
200 articles, Pike has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize 15 consecutive
years. He has served as a consultant analyst in more than a hundred languages
for colleagues in over 40 countries. For over 30 years he straddled tenured
professorship at the University of Michigan and the SIL presidency. The
list runs on.
It is not his convictions for academic excellence, however, that has set
him apart in the linguistic community. It is Pike's steadfast eye on God.
Whether in language, lecturing, philosophy, or his latest focus: poetry,
Pike has been consciously living out the commission to love God with his
mind. He always knew Whose world it was and Whose mission he was involved
in.
"But language and philosophy are not the end of life or its center. Somewhere,
one must note and feel and discuss the personal reaction to beauty, joy,
love, hatred...greed...pain - and the worship of Almighty God, which involves
working with him to build the house he has planned (Ps. 127:1)." 2
1 International Bulletin
of Missionary Research, Oct. 1997
2 International Bulletin
of Missionary Research, Oct. 1997
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