POSITION:
Head of the Linguistics, Language, and Culture training department
Member of the survey team
SERVING IN:
Global
Kate French started volunteering with DOOR in 2019 in their language survey department. Then in 2020, she started to help with training. In 2022, she officially joined DOOR staff. Because she is a nerd in linguistics and a geek in everything else, her role in research and training is well matched. She’ll continue her work in language survey and consultant training, putting her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of North Dakota to good use.
One of the questions she gets asked the most is: “Language survey, what is that?” This is a great question. Before DOOR can start a Bible translation, before we can set up a discipleship team, and before we can do our part in reaching the Deaf community, we have to know where the Deaf community is.
We don’t know where they are in the country. We don’t know if the whole country uses the same sign language. We don’t know if country A uses the same sign language as country B.
So, we survey. We ask: “Where are they? What language do they use? What language should our translation be in?” Therefore, Kate goes out (along with the team) and finds the answers to all these questions. And we have the time of our lives!
