The organization was founded by Presbyterian minister William Cameron Townsend, an American missionary to Guatemala, where he worked among the Kaqchikel Maya people. In 1933, Townsend turned to Mexico with the purpose of translating the Bible into indigenous languages there, as he had done for Kaqchikel. Townsend established a working relation with the Mexican ministry of education under the progressive government of Lázaro Cárdenas and founded SIL to educate linguist-missionaries to work in Mexico. Through the following decades the SIL linguists worked at providing literacy education to indigenous people of Mexico, while simultaneously working with SIL's partner organization, Wycliffe Bible Translators, also founded by Townsend, to translate the Bible into the languages where they were working. SIL gradually extended its work to other regions of the world where indigenous languages were spoken, including Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia and Africa. While initially SIL's staff only received basic training in linguistics and anthropology, gradually the organization has become more professional, and today many members have advanced degrees.