The first Participatory Research in Linguistics (PRL) workshop was held in 1988 under the facilitation of Constance Kutsch Lojenga. The impetus came from a request for orthography help by the Ngiti people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who were finding it too difficult to read their mother-tongue with their current writing system. The goal of the workshop was to develop an adequate orthography for the Ngiti language with as much local participation as possible. By means of hands-on training, it was hoped that the community would become equipped to carry the main responsibility for further language development, including an upcoming translation project.   

The resulting PRL workshop was a series of 3 sessions, each session ranging from 1-2 weeks. Ten to fifteen local volunteers participated, including school directors, local pastors, and village elders. The outcome was a success. Not only was a readable orthography established, but the local community gained the training they needed to carry forward the translation project and further language development.

Since the initial workshop in 1988, Kutsch Lojenga has facilitated PRL workshops for African languages of all different phyla, including the Austronesian languages of Madagascar. Due to the method’s success, other field linguists in Africa began conducting their own PRL workshops. Dr. Virginia (Ginger) Boyd, in particular, has worked with fellow linguists in the Cameroon branch to adapt the basic method for application across varying contexts. In 2019, Shane Devereux and Jenita van den Belt became the first linguists to trial a PRL workshop in mainland Southeast Asia. The outcomes of PRL workshops have been consistent across differing cultures and languages - readable orthographies, local ownership, and empowered communities.