Rapid Word Collection Research Group
In 2010, the Rapid Word Collection Research Group was formed, when a group of linguists and researchers from SIL International (Ron Moe, Gary Simons, Kevin Warfel, Doug Higby, Art Cooper) came together with a common desire to see the process of collecting lexical information simplified and made accessible to all languages that do not have adequate documentation.
Having been discouraged by the slow progress of lexical collection in the average language project, they desired to make proven methods of accelerated dictionary development accessible to languages all over the world. Ronald Moe pioneered a method of collecting words according to a set of semantic domains, and the rest of the group joined with him to help refine his methods based on real data from word collection workshops and to provide the instructions needed to carry out such a workshop.
Dictionary & Lexicography Services
In 2012, International Language Program Services of SIL International decided to make the Rapid Word Collection (RWC) methodology part of its overall strategy for developing dictionaries. In order to provide RWC workshops to language programs around the world, the Dictionary & Lexicography Services unit was launched with Verna Stutzman as Coordinator and Kevin Warfel as the Associate Coordinator. Doug Higby continues to host this website. It is our desire to facilitate Rapid Word Collection workshops wherever language communities have a desire to have a dictionary.