John Bendor-Samuel

John Theodore Bendor-Samuel (9 June 1929 – 6 January 2011) was an evangelical Christian missionary and linguist who furthered Bible translation work into African languages, as well as making significant contributions to the study of African linguistics. Amongst his friends and colleagues he was widely known by his initials, JBS.

He had an instrumental role in the founding of Wycliffe Bible Translators UK; the West Africa Linguistics Society Both of his parents were church ministers, This commitment to study continued and at the end of secondary school, he was accepted into Oxford University to study history.

Between his secondary education and attending university, Bendor-Samuel had to spend two years doing National Service in the army. Unable to afford the residential fee for the course, he lived at his parents' house in West Norwood, cycling to and from the college each day and working on completing his theology diploma when he got home at night.

As part of this position, Bendor-Samuel essentially turned his attic bedroom into the UK office of Wycliffe Bible Translators. With the help of his brother David, he also bought a motorcycle and side-car, which he used to travel around areas near London promoting the work of Wycliffe and searching for a location for the next year's course.

Following the 1954 SIL course, which was held in Chigwell, Essex, Bendor-Samuel decided to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. Encouraged to engage in further linguistics study to equip him for work with Wycliffe, he enrolled on a one-year MA course at the School of Oriental and African Studies before studying for a PhD in Linguistics.

In January 1955, Bendor-Samuel became engaged to fellow Wycliffe member Pamela Moxham. After a year in Peru, collecting phonological and grammatical data on the language and helping to devise an alphabet, they returned to England, where John spent eighteen months working on his thesis.

The beginning of work in Africa Bendor-Samuel's first visit to Africa, where his most extensive and influential work occurred, was in 1960. In response to requests from various African church leaders, and following a particularly emotive plea from a Ghanaian language assistant who interrupted a Council meeting during the 1959 summer course, SIL president George Cowan decided that linguistic and Bible translation work should commence in Africa. An encounter with the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, allowed him to initiate linguistics work in that country as well.

Death Bendor-Samuel died in hospital following a car accident near his home in Studley Green on the evening of 6 January 2011. His wife Pamela Bendor-Samuel survived him by eight years (1930–2019). He is survived by their 5 children and 15 grandchildren.

John Bendor-Samuel had a particular impact in Africa, where his promotion of national organisations encouraged the establishment of several Wycliffe organisations across the continent.

Publications In total, Bendor-Samuel wrote one book, co-authored another, contributed several articles to academic journals and wrote 14 articles on Niger–Congo language groups for the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Books and monographs

As editor Ten Nigerian Tone Systems (Jos and Kano: Institute of Linguistics and Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages, 1974)

As author The Verbal Piece in Jebero (New York: Linguistic Circle of New York, 1961) (with Paul E. and Ingeborg Meier) A Grammar of Izi, an Igbo Language (Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma, 1975) (with Keir Hansford and Ronald Stanford) An Index of Nigerian Languages (Ghana: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1976) John Bendor-Samuel, Rhonda Hartell, 1989, The Niger–Congo Languages: a classification and description of Africa's largest language family. University Press of America. , Encyclopædia Britannica articles on African languages: http://www.britannica.com/bps/user-profile/4338 Retrieved 24 Jan 2011 John Bendor-Samuel bibliography at SIL International

Journal and book articles 'Some problems of segmentation in the phonological analysis of Tereno', WORD, 16 (1960) 'Stress in Terena', Transactions of the Philological Society (1963) 'A structure-function description of Terena phrases', Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 8 (1963) 'The Grusi sub-group of the Gur languages', Journal of West African Languages, 2 (1965) 'Problems in the analysis of sentences and clauses in Bimoba', WORD, 21 (1965) (with W.A.A. Wilson, Evangelina Arana and Morris Swadesh) 'A preliminary glottochronology of Gur languages', Journal of West African Languages, 3 (1966) (with Thomas Edmondson), 'Tone patterns of Etung', Journal of African Languages, 5 (1966) 'Some prosodic features in Terena' in C. E. Bazell (ed.), In memory of J. R. Firth (London: Longmans, 1966) 'Grammatical prosodies??' in Kenneth L. Pike (ed.), Tagmemic and matrix linguistics applied to selected African languages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1966) (with Ingeborg Meier) 'Some contrasting features of the Izi verbal system', Journal of African Languages, 6 (1967) 'Verb clusters in Izi', Journal of West African Languages, 5 (1968) (with W.A.A. Wilson) 'The phonology of the nominal in Dagbani', Linguistics, 52 (1969) (with Klaus W. Spreder) 'Fortis articulation: a feature of the present continuous verb in Agbo', Linguistics, 52 (1969) 'Yakur syllable patterns', WORD, 25 (1969) 'Syntagmatic features or grammatical prosodies' in Alexandru Graur et al. (eds.), Actes du Xe Congrès International des Linguistes (Bucharest: Académie de la République Socialiste de Roumani, 1970) (with Esther Cressman and Donna Skitch) 'The nominal phrase in Duka', Journal of West African Languages, 8 (1971) (with Mona Perrin), 'A note on labialisation in Mambila' in Actes du huitième Congrès International de Linguistique Africaine, Abidjan, 24-28 mars 1969 (Abidjan: Bibliothèque Universitaire, 1971) 'Niger–Congo: Gur' in Linguistics in sub-Saharan Africa (The Hague: Mouton, 1971) (with Esther Cressman and Donna Skitch) 'Duka sentence, clause and phrase' in Duka Sentence, Clause and Phrase (Zaria: Institute of Linguistics and Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages, 1973) (with Robert Koops) 'The recapitulating pronouns in Kuteb', Journal of West African Languages, 9 (1974) (with Paul E. Meier) 'Izi' in John Bendor-Samuel (ed.), Ten Nigerian Tone Systems (Jos and Kano: Institute of Linguistics and Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages, 1974) 'Propositions pour un modèle grammatical approprié aux travaux sur le terrain' in Les langues sans tradition écrite: Méthodes d’enquête et de description (Paris: Société d’Études Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France, 1974)

Other The structure and function of the verbal piece in the Jebero language (PhD Thesis, University of London, 1958) 'Review of: Textos hixkaryâna, by Desmond C. Derbyshire', Lingua, 19 (1968) 'Review of: Languages of Guatemala, Marvin K. Mayers, editor', Lingua, 19 (1968) 'Review of: Description and classification of Siriono, a Tupi-Guaraní language, by Homer L. Firestone', Lingua, 19''' (1968)