FirstVoices facts for kids

FirstVoices is a cool online platform that helps Indigenous communities share and keep their languages, stories, and history alive. It's like a special website built to help people learn and use their traditional languages.

FirstVoices is a team effort. It's run by the First Peoples' Cultural Council and the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation. Both are groups led by Indigenous people in British Columbia, Canada.

FirstVoices.com: Your Language Hub

FirstVoices.com started in 2003. It lets language teams from Indigenous communities create their own secure websites. On these sites, they can upload many things to document and share their languages. This includes alphabets, audio recordings, words, phrases, songs, and stories.

The language sites also have fun, kid-friendly ways to see the content. There are even games that use the words and media uploaded! As of 2024, FirstVoices hosts 65 public and 17 private sites for languages in British Columbia. It also helps Indigenous communities across Canada, the US, New Zealand, and Australia.

The communities themselves control all the content. This is called data sovereignty, meaning they decide who sees what. Teams of young people, teachers, elders, and others manage the sites. Most language sites are open to everyone, but some are password-protected if the community wants them to be private.

In 2023, FirstVoices got a big upgrade. It now uses modern web technologies like Django and ReactJS to make it even better and faster.

More Cool Tools from FirstVoices

Besides the main website, FirstVoices offers other helpful tools for language learning:

• FirstVoices dictionary apps – These are 17 free mobile apps. They let you look up words and phrases from the FirstVoices language sites on your phone or tablet.
• FirstVoices keyboards – These are special keyboard programs for computers and mobile phones. They let you type in over 100 languages! This includes every First Nations language in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, plus many Indigenous languages in the United States.
• BC Sans font – This is a special computer font. It's designed to show text clearly in Indigenous languages from British Columbia.
• Training and grants – FirstVoices also helps communities by offering training and money through the First Peoples' Cultural Council's Language Technology Program.
• Help desk and knowledge base – If you have questions or need help, they have a support team and a library of information to guide you.

Old Projects That Paved the Way

FirstVoices has also worked on other projects in the past:

• Chat app – Back in 2012, before iPhones had third-party keyboards, FirstVoices made a chat app. It let people type messages in every Indigenous language in North America and Australia. Now, the keyboard apps do this job even better.
• Language Tutor and Language Lab – Released in 2010, the Language Tutor helped people create language lessons. The Language Lab was a portable kit with a laptop, Wi-Fi, and iPads. It let users listen to words, record themselves speaking, and compare their voice to a fluent speaker. It also had quizzes and games. Teachers and parents could even see how students were doing!

Why FirstVoices is So Important

FirstVoices started in 2003, but the idea came about in 1999. Peter Brand and J,SIṈTEN (Dr. John Elliott), who were leaders in bringing the SENĆOŦEN language online, had the vision. In the two decades since, FirstVoices has grown a lot, now hosting sites for nearly 100 different languages.

Saving and bringing back Indigenous languages is very important and urgent. Many Indigenous languages are losing their fluent speakers, and many of these speakers are over 65 years old. Also, almost three-quarters of Indigenous people in British Columbia live away from reserves. This means they might not have easy access to language and cultural programs.

But there's good news! More and more people in British Columbia want to learn these languages. Many of these learners are children and young adults.

FirstVoices is made for these Indigenous language learners. They make up most of the over 350,000 people who visit FirstVoices sites every year. However, many non-Indigenous people who are interested in these languages also visit. Online tools like FirstVoices make it possible for people from all backgrounds to learn these precious languages.