Dr. Ryan Pennington

A conversation with Dr. Ryan Pennington, the founder and director of the Refugee Language Project (refugeelanguage.org). Pennington, a linguist by profession, moved to Amarillo after several years as a Bible translator in Papua New Guinea. Here he discovered an extraordinary refugee population—and set about trying to remove the barriers that kept these residents from success. He and host Jason Boyett talk about Pennington's culture shock, how West Texans and Somalis are alike, and why relationships are so essential to learning a new language. This episode is sponsored by Wieck Realty.