In 1941, Smalley matriculated in Houghton College, where he developed an interest in anthropology, which he saw as relevant to missionary work.
Gallery of William Smalley
15 Central Ave N, Nyack, NY 10960, USA
After graduating from Houghton in 1945 with a degree in English literature, Smalley attended the Missionary Training Institute (now Nyack Missionary College).
Gallery of William Smalley
660 Parrington Oval, Norman, OK 73019, USA
Smalley then received linguistic training in Bible translation at the Summer Institute of Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma.
Gallery of William Smalley
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
In 1946, Smalley also enrolled in Columbia University's graduate program in anthropology with an emphasis on linguistics.
Career
Gallery of William Smalley
3901-3965 Snelling Ave N, Arden Hills, MN 55112, USA
In 1978, Smalley relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota, to accept a position as Professor of Linguistics at Bethel University, where he worked till his retirement in 1987.
After graduating from Houghton in 1945 with a degree in English literature, Smalley attended the Missionary Training Institute (now Nyack Missionary College).
3901-3965 Snelling Ave N, Arden Hills, MN 55112, USA
In 1978, Smalley relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota, to accept a position as Professor of Linguistics at Bethel University, where he worked till his retirement in 1987.
Mother of Writing: The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script
(The book traces the twenty-year-long struggle to dissemin...)
The book traces the twenty-year-long struggle to disseminate the script after Shong Lue's death, first by handwriting, then by primitive moveable type, an abortive attempt to design a wooden typewriter, and finally by modern wordprocessing. In a moving concluding chapter, Smalley discusses his own complex feelings about his coauthors' story.
Linguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand
(In this study of the relations among politics, geography,...)
In this study of the relations among politics, geography, and language, William A. Smalley shows how Thailand has maintained national unity through an elaborate social and linguistic hierarchy. By examining the hierarchy of Thailand's diverse languages and dialects in light of Thai history, education, culture, and religion, Smalley shows how Thailand has been able to keep its many ethnic groups at peace.
William A. Smalley was an American linguist, anthropologist, author and missionary who sat with the ancient Hmong peoples in the mountains of Laos, listened to the patterns of their speech and helped them develop their first permanent written language. He held the position of professor emeritus of linguistics at Bethel College in St. Paul.
Background
William A. Smalley was born on April 4, 1923, in Jerusalem, Israel, where his parents worked as missionaries of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He and his family remained there until 1934, at which time they returned to the United States.
Education
In 1941, Smalley matriculated in Houghton College, where he developed an interest in anthropology, which he saw as relevant to missionary work. After graduating from Houghton in 1945 with a degree in English literature, he attended the Missionary Training Institute and received linguistic training in Bible translation at the Summer Institute of Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. In 1946, he also enrolled in Columbia University's graduate program in anthropology with an emphasis on linguistics.
Smalley started his career, working for the Christian and Missionary Alliance, who sent him and his family to Laos and asked if he could use his expertise to develop a written alphabet for the Hmong, people who had been driven out of China and settled in the mountains of Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Smalley worked to create characters for the Hmong language and his written form is still used today.
In 1954, the outbreak of the Laotian Civil War forced him and his wife to return to the United States. After leaving Indochina, he worked primarily in Southeast Asia as a translation consultant and coordinator for the American Bible Society and its parent organization, United Bible Societies. The nature of his work meant that he twice took up residence in Thailand, first from 1962 to 1967 and then again from 1969 to 1972.
Smalley was also the editor of Practical Anthropology (now known as Missiology) from 1955 to 1968 and an associate editor of The Bible Translator from 1957 to 1959.
In 1978, he relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota, to accept a position as Professor of Linguistics at Bethel University, where he worked till his retirement in 1987. Smalley's last occupation was as an associate editor of Language Sciences from 1983 to 1992, however, after retirement, he continued to write extensively.