Possible places to study linguistics

GIVEN the multilingual society in which Papua New Guineans grow up, it is hardly surprising that there is great interest in language and how it works amongst people at all levels of society. And given this interest, I am not surprised at the number of young people who write to me asking how they can study linguistics and become academically qualified to study language. Before answering this question, it is important to understand what linguistics is. Because of the presence of SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) and its Bible translation work in many parts of the country, many people in PNG equate linguistics with Bible translation. But th…