Museums

The JAARS Center is home to two translation-focused museums, which host more than 5,000 visitors each year.

Museum of the Alphabet

The Museum of the Alphabet traces the history of alphabets and other writing systems. Paintings, displays and artifacts explore ancient and modern alphabet makers, as well as writing systems for Braille, mathematics and music. A phoneme exhibit illustrates how modern alphabet makers discover the sounds in unwritten languages. And at a specialized computer display, guests can have their names printed in non-Roman scripts.

For more information, visit the Museum of the Alphabet Web site.

Mexico-Cárdenas Museum

The Mexico-Cárdenas Museum displays artifacts, costumes, photographs and folk art that illustrate early Bible translation and cross-cultural work in Mexico. The museum also highlights Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico’s president from 1934–1940. Cárdenas helped make it possible for the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International) to study language groups in Mexico.

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Visit Our Museums

Both museums are open Monday–Saturday, 9 a.m.–noon and 1–4 p.m. Admission is free.

For more information, call 1-704-843-6066.