FirstVoices is an open-source web platform for language revitalization projects, which supports Indigenous communities to share and promote their languages, oral culture and linguistic history. [1] It is a joint initiative of the First Peoples' Cultural Council (a First Nations-led Crown Corporation in British Columbia, Canada) and the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation (an Indigenous-led crown agency). [2]
FirstVoices.com was launched in 2003, [3] and allows language teams from Indigenous communities to create secure, interactive web sites to document and promote their languages by uploading alphabets, audio recordings, words, phrases, songs and stories. The languages sites include kid-friendly views of the content, and games based on the uploaded words and media. As of 2024, FirstVoices hosts 65 public and 17 private sites for British Columbia languages, and also supports Indigenous communities throughout Canada, the US, New Zealand and Australia. [4]
Following the principles of data sovereignty, all content is controlled and managed by community language administrator teams composed of youth, language teachers, language champions, fluent elders, technical staff and others. [4] Most language sites are publicly accessible, but others are password-protected at the direction of their individual language community. [2]
In 2023 FirstVoices migrated to a new version with a rebuilt back-end that uses Django, and an updated front-end interface using ReactJS. [4] Before that, a 2018 version was based on Nuxeo. [5]
In addition to the web platform, FirstVoices provides several other tools and projects related to language revitalization software: [6]
Officially launched in 2003, the idea for FirstVoices came about in 1999 from Peter Brand and J,SIṈTEN (Dr. John Elliott), leaders in online SENĆOŦEN language revitalization. In the two decades since FirstVoices started, it has grown to host language sites for nearly 100 languages and language varieties. [3] [14]
Indigenous language revitalization is a time-sensitive concern in BC and globally. [1] Many Indigenous languages face a loss of fluent speakers, many of whom are over 65 years old. [15] Almost three-quarters of BC's Indigenous population live away from reserves and are less likely to have access to language and cultural programming. There is a growing population of language learners in BC, many of whom are children and younger adults. [16]
The target audience for FirstVoices is Indigenous language learners. These make up the majority of the more than 350,000 yearly FirstVoices site visits, though many visitors are non-Indigenous people interested in Indigenous languages. Online tools provide access to language learning for people from many backgrounds. [2] [4]
Saanich is a district municipality on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, within the Greater Victoria area. The population was 117,735 at the 2021 census, making it the most populous municipality in the Capital Regional District and Vancouver Island, and the eighth-most populous in the province. The district adopted its name after the Saanich First Nation, meaning "emerging land" or "emerging people". The district acts as a bedroom community immediately to the north of Victoria, British Columbia.
The Kʼómoks or Kʼomoks, usually known in English as the Comox, are an indigenous group of Coast Salishan-speaking people in Comox, British Columbia and in Toba Inlet and the Malaspina Peninsula areas of the British Columbia mainland across Georgia Strait. They historically spoke the Komox language (Comox-Sliammon), and were divided in two main dialect and tribal groupings, which are known by academics as Island Comox and Mainland Comox.
Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, or governments. Some argue for a distinction between language revival and language revitalization. There has only been one successful instance of a complete language revival: that of the Hebrew language.
The Saanich or W̱sáneć are indigenous nations from the north coast of the Gulf and San Juan Islands, southern Vancouver Island and the southern edge of the Lower Mainland in British Columbia.
Halkomelem is a language of various First Nations peoples of the British Columbia Coast. It is spoken in what is now British Columbia, ranging from southeastern Vancouver Island from the west shore of Saanich Inlet northward beyond Gabriola Island and Nanaimo to Nanoose Bay and including the Lower Mainland from the Fraser River Delta upriver to Harrison Lake and the lower boundary of the Fraser Canyon.
The Stó꞉lō, alternately written as Sto꞉lo, Stó:lô, or Stó:lõ, historically as Staulo, Stalo or Stahlo, and historically known and commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish, are a group of First Nations peoples inhabiting the Fraser Valley and lower Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada, part of the loose grouping of Coast Salish nations. Stó꞉lō is the Halqemeylem word for "river", so the Stó꞉lō are the river people. The first documented reference to these people as "the Stó꞉lō" occurs in Catholic Oblate missionary records from the 1880s. Prior to this, references were primarily to individual tribal groups such as Matsqui, Ts’elxweyeqw, or Sumas.
The T'sou-ke Nation of the Coast Salish peoples, is a band government whose reserve community is located on Vancouver Island, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. In February 2013, the T'sou-ke Nation had 251 registered members, with two reserves around the Sooke Basin on the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the southern end of Vancouver Island, with a total area of 67 hectares. The T'Souk-e people are the namesake of the town of Sooke, British Columbia and its surrounding harbour and basin.
The Kutenai language, also Kootenai, Kootenay, Ktunaxa, and Ksanka, is the native language of the Kutenai people of Montana and Idaho in the United States and British Columbia in Canada. It is typically considered a language isolate, unrelated to the Salishan family of languages spoken by neighboring tribes on the coast and in the interior Plateau. The Kutenai also speak ʔa·qanⱡiⱡⱡitnam, Ktunaxa Sign Language.
Mount Douglas, usually referred to as Mount Doug by locals, is a prominent, 225 m (738 ft) hill in Saanich, British Columbia. It is located in (PKOLS) Mount Douglas Park in the municipality of Saanich.
Nisga’a is an indigenous language of northwestern British Columbia. It is a part of the language family generally called Tsimshianic, although some Nisga'a people resent the precedence the term gives to Coast Tsimshian. Nisga’a is very closely related to Gitxsan. Indeed, many linguists regard Nisga’a and Gitksan as dialects of a single Nass–Gitksan language. The two are generally treated as distinct languages out of deference to the political separation of the two groups.
Saanich is the language of the First Nations Saanich people in the Pacific Northwest region of northwestern North America. Saanich is a Coast Salishan language in the Northern Straits dialect continuum, the varieties of which are closely related to the Klallam language.
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an indigenous language and an official language of Bolivia. Also, national languages are not necessarily indigenous to the country.
The Shuswap language is a northern Interior Salish language traditionally spoken by the Shuswap people of British Columbia. An endangered language, Shuswap is spoken mainly in the Central and Southern Interior of British Columbia between the Fraser River and the Rocky Mountains. According to the First Peoples' Cultural Council, 200 people speak Shuswap as a mother tongue, and there are 1,190 semi-speakers.
The First Peoples' Cultural Council (FPCC) is a First Nations governed Crown Corporation of the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is based in Brentwood Bay, British Columbia on Tsartlip First Nation. The organization was formerly known as the First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Council, but shortened its name in 2012.
Malahat First Nation is a Coast Salish First Nations community of W̱SÁNEĆ representing approximately 350 members with two reserve lands located on the western shore of Saanich Inlet, Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The Malahat First Nation is one of many nations within the Coastal Salish group that live on their traditional lands. The Coastal Salish are Indigenous to the Northwest mainland, coast, and islands. The Malahat First Nation is a member nation of the Naut'sa mawt Tribal Council and was the ninth First Nation in Canada to be certified by the First Nations Financial Management Board. The ancestral languages of Malahat Nation are Hul̓q̓umín̓um̓ and SENĆOŦEN. The Hul̓q̓umín̓um̓ or Halkomelem language is spoken in Washington State and British Columbia and is within the Coastal Salish language family. Currently it is being revitalized, as it is mainly spoken by elders in the community. The Chief of Malahat Nation is George Harry. George served on the council for four years before being elected as Chief on June 10, 2019.
Memrise is a British language platform that uses spaced repetition of flashcards to increase the rate of learning. It is based in London, UK.
The Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program is a strategy used in language revitalization, in which committed language learners (apprentices) work with fluent speakers (mentors) to "create their own oral language-immersive context through daily activities, cultural practices, and community involvement". Originally introduced in the 1992, the method is increasingly popular across North America and around the world.
Marianne Boelscher Ignace is a Canadian linguist and anthropologist. Married into the Shuswap people, she is a Full professor in the departments of Linguistics and Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and Director of SFU's Indigenous Languages Program and First Nations Language Centre. In 2020, Ignace was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her work in revitalizing and preserving indigenous languages.
Ditidaht Kids is a Canadian mobile game developed by the language department of the Ditidaht Community School (DCS), who are members of the Ditidaht First Nation in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The game was created to teach Ditidaht children aged 3 to 6 about their language, territory, traditions, and culture in preparation for them attending kindergarten at the DCS. Ditidaht Kids involves an interactive canoe journey through Ditidaht territory. The game was funded by the First Peoples' Cultural Council (FPCC) and the Ditidaht Community School collaborated with elder teachers, knowledge keepers, fluent speakers, historians, researchers, voice actors, songwriters, children, and parents to develop the game. Ditidaht Kids was released on September 23, 2021, and is available on Android and iOS. As of November 2021, the game has been downloaded over 2,000 times.