Global Recordings Network (GRN) was founded by
Joy Ridderhof in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
in 1939 as "Gospel Recordings." The mission of GRN is "In partnership with the church, to effectively communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ by means of culturally appropriate audio and audio-visual materials in every language." This is accomplished by recording the stories of the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
in the native language or dialect, by a mother tongue speaker and providing them in an audio format to the community. Often the languages do not have a written form. GRN has recorded over 6,000 languages or dialects. GRN has offices in more than 20 countries.
The language professor
Alexander Arguelles notes that it is possible to use these recordings and the accompanying text in a language the learner knows, to start learning any of the languages.
For many there is no other way to learn the language. 1300 of the languages accompany the stories with standardized pictures, shown for 10–20 seconds, which allow learners to find short parallel sections in the language they know and the one they want to learn.
The recordings have been used for linguistic research on rhythm and phonological characteristics,
vowels,
consonants,
for comparative research on phonemes from hundreds of languages,
for developing and testing computer systems to recognize languages,
and for documenting and reviving rare languages.
Books
*1978 - ''
Capturing Voices'' by Phyllis Thompson, a biography of Joy Ridderhof and Gospel Recordings.
*1987 - ''Catching Their Talk In A Box'' by Betty M. Hockett, a children's biography from the series "Life-Story from Missions"
See also
*
Language education
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language educatio ...
*
SIL International
*
Wycliffe Bible Translators
Wycliffe Global Alliance is an alliance of organizations that have objective of translating the Bible into every language. The organisation is named after John Wycliffe, who was responsible for the first complete English translation of the whole ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
Global Recordings HomepageAudiovie Homepage Audiovie is Global Recordings in most Francophone countries.
Wheaton College GRN archives collection
Christian missions
1939 establishments in California
Language acquisition