“In our
language, it is embedded,
our philosophy
of life and our technologies.
There is a reason why we want our languages preserved
and taught to our children – it is our survival.” -- Dr. Burt McKay, former FPHLC Council
member, Nisga’a language teacher and Elder.
Created in 2003 with funding provided by the province of British Columbia and the Department of Canadian Heritage, FirstVoices is an online First Nations language documentation and learning tool, with a focus on the many diverse Aboriginal languages of B.C. The First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Council administers the project, providing training and ongoing support for language communities.
What is FirstVoices?
At the core of FirstVoices is an online language archiving tool that enables First Nations to document their alphabets, dictionaries phrases, songs and stories in their own customized online archives.
The alphabet provides the written character set for a language, with sample sound files for each character.
The dictionary provides a word list, with translations, definitions, sounds, images and video.
The phrase book contains everyday conversational language with related text, sound, image and video files to support language learning.
Once uploaded to a FirstVoices online archive, language data can be accessed by language learners via media-rich interactive lessons, games and exercises.
Time is running out to archive languages
Currently, there are more than 60 languages and dialects archived on the FirstVoices website.
According to linguists, a typical First Nations language lexicon numbers between 20,000 and 30,000 words. To date, the most successful FirstVoices language archive contains approximately 4,600, entries, comprised of 3,500 words and 1,100 phrases.
If we realistically estimate that we could gather 20,000 entries for each language, the required number of entries would be 1.5 million.
So far, FirstVoices has just 72,000 entries-4.8% of what is required to document First Nations languages in B.C.
That means that 96% of what needs to be documented is still left to do.
You can help FirstVoices and First Nations languages in B.C. by donating funds to this important project. Visit Giving
for more information.
We gratefully acknowledge support from the
Department of Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada; the
Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services,
Government of British Columbia; and the BC Arts Council &
the BC Museums Association Digital Collections Fund.
