Canada Institute of Linguistics

10/08/2026

Congratulations to Mandelena Chetty, TWU’s 2026 Act Justly Award recipient! 💛

A recent graduate of TWU’s BA in Applied Linguistics program, Mandelena studied with CanIL’s Dr. Randy Lebold. Just over a year after her April 2025 graduation, we’re celebrating the significant impact she is already making.

During a volunteer trip to Zambia, Mandelena saw children unable to attend school. While still completing her degree, she began working to change that.

Today, Julie Chetty’s Primary School of Love serves more than 100 children, many attending school for the first time. Named in honour of her late mother, who also taught in Zambia, it carries forward a legacy of love through education.

Mandelena, we’re grateful to have been part of your learning journey and delighted to celebrate where your compassion and commitment are taking you.

Watch TWU’s video below and join us in congratulating her!

➡️

From a volunteer trip in Zambia to founding a school for children w...

10/07/2026

Yesterday, October 6, marked 490 years since William Tyndale’s ex*****on. His conviction that people should have Scripture in their own language continues to resonate today.

One in five people still waits for the full Bible in their own language.

At CanIL, we prepare Bible translation consultants, linguists and literacy specialists to serve alongside local translators and communities, helping make Scripture accurate, clear, natural and meaningful to those who receive it.

Behind every translation are people who need training, mentoring and support. When you invest in their preparation, you help bring God’s Word to communities still waiting.


Source: Wycliffe Bible Translators UK, October 2026

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1981421659190275

10/01/2026

One year ago, communities in Colpa, Peru, gathered to celebrate the complete Eastern Apurímac Quechua Bible.

CanIL’s Danny Foster and Shannon Mischuk had the privilege of joining them, travelling with friends and ministry partners from Wycliffe Canada and Christian Life Assembly in Langley.

Close to twenty years of work, led by local translators through AIDIA and supported by faithful partners, brought them to that day.

These previously unshared photos remind us why we train: to equip people to serve alongside local translators and churches, helping communities read, understand, and share God’s Word in their own language.

Photos via .peru

Wycliffe Bible Translators of Canada

09/30/2026

Today, on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we pause to listen, learn, and honour Indigenous Peoples and their languages.

At CanIL, our work reminds us that language carries stories, identity, and belonging. It also reminds us that the future of a language must be shaped by the people who speak it.

We are grateful for the Indigenous language leaders and communities who invite us to learn alongside them. May we approach those relationships with humility, respect, and a willingness to keep listening, today and throughout the year. 🧡

09/22/2026

There’s no place quite like CanIL!

CanIL is a one-of-a-kind nonprofit educational institute in Canada. Students come from across the country and around the world for specialized training, but what many remember most is the community they find here.

Some of our best moments happen outside the classroom. Sharing a meal. Playing volleyball on a sunny afternoon. Hiking, canoeing, or spending a weekend camping in the mountains. The activity changes, but the heart of it stays the same. We make time to be together.

Our faculty are part of that life too. Many have spent decades serving alongside language communities around the world. They bring that experience into the classroom, but they also share it over a meal, in conversation, or on the trail.

The people you study beside here become colleagues for life.

See for yourself: check out our website www.canil.ca

09/18/2026

How can we share the gospel while honouring the language and culture of the people receiving it?

That question matters at CanIL. We recognize the harm done when Christianity has been used to dismiss or erase cultures. We also believe people should be able to encounter Scripture in a language they understand deeply, with translation shaped alongside the communities who speak it.

This past August, CanIL President Dr. Danny Foster joined Mission Central’s "Mission Fest BC" Missionary Panel for a conversation about sharing and living out the gospel with humility and respect.

Watch the discussion here: https://youtu.be/lFpP90UE0fo?si=Exg8c6FLOHjKCIzg

09/16/2026

Thinking about serving in Bible translation after CanIL?

Training is one part of getting there. Building a ministry team and preparing financially take time, too. CanIL LAUNCH helps students begin that work while they’re still studying.

Join us to learn about LAUNCH and the support available as you prepare for what comes next.

📍 Classroom 209
📅 Tuesday, September 22
🕚 11:00 a.m.
🫓 Snacks!!

If fieldwork is on your mind, come hear what it could look like for you.

The application deadline for new LAUNCH students is September 30. Learn more: www.canil.ca/launch

09/14/2026

Most of the world’s languages weren’t born small. They were made small.

Some were pushed to the edges by schools that taught children their mother tongue did not count. Others were divided by borders or displaced by policies that treated certain languages as worth preserving and others as worth replacing.

The result is a quiet emergency.

Hundreds of languages have never been written down. Thousands more are spoken fluently today but remain untaught, placing them at risk of falling silent within a generation.

When a language disappears, a community can lose far more than words. Stories, knowledge, cultural memory, identity, and a distinct way of understanding the world can disappear with it.

But language loss is not inevitable.

Languages can be studied, documented, written, taught, translated, and passed on. That work requires people with specialized training who are prepared to listen, learn, and work in genuine partnership with the communities whose languages they serve.

That is the work CanIL exists for.

Learn how language development strengthens communities and helps make Scripture accessible in the languages people know best: canil.ca/the-work

09/10/2026

As a new academic year begins, we want to offer a blessing to the friends who make CanIL’s work possible.

You walked with us as we renovated and expanded our learning spaces. Now we are seeing that growth extend beyond our walls, through the expanding Master of Arts in Translation of Scripture (MATS) program, the addition of TBTA, and a new group of students preparing to serve language communities around the world.

This growth is not about becoming larger for its own sake. It is about making room for more people to be trained, more translation teams to be strengthened, and more communities to engage Scripture in the languages they know best.

As we enter this new season, we pray that God will also strengthen and guide you:

May He give you courage to make room for what He is bringing.
May He strengthen what has already been established.
May He provide what is needed for every new step.
And may your faithfulness bear fruit beyond what you can presently see.

“Enlarge the place of your tent… lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” Isaiah 54:2

Thank you for walking with CanIL into this new season.

09/08/2026

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘
𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥

Today is International Literacy Day.

Literacy opens doors to education, participation, opportunity, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next. But for many language communities, the journey toward literacy begins long before a book reaches a classroom.

It begins with listening carefully to the sounds of a language.

It may require developing a writing system alongside the people who speak it, documenting words and grammar, creating reading materials, and equipping local teachers and literacy workers.

This is part of the patient work of language development.

At CanIL, we train people to serve alongside language communities so their languages can be studied, written, read, strengthened, and passed on. For many communities, that journey also creates a path toward engaging Scripture in the language they know best.

On International Literacy Day, we honour the linguists, educators, translators, literacy specialists, and community members doing this careful work around the world.

May their work be strengthened. May more people have the opportunity to read and write in their own language. And may every language community know that their words matter.

Learn more about language development and explore our new website at canil.ca



📷: A boy practices reading aloud in front of a classroom by Zeke du Plessis via the Wycliffe Global Alliance Photo Library (Skip). CC:BY 4.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/]