There's an app for that: Inside the technological battle to save Indigenous languages
'I will fight until the day I die for my language to survive and thrive.'
Yvette Mollen's passion for championing Innu-aimun is unwavering. The professor, researcher, author and web content developer has dedicated most of her adult life to recording, preserving and passing on her ancestors' tongue, an Algonquian language spoken by some 10,000 Innu in Quebec and Labrador. One way she does this is by developing interactive online games that help children learn Innu-aimun, while also seeing how their people lived, and still could live, on the land.
For Ms. Mollen — the recipient in 2024 of the Order of Quebec for her linguistic initiatives — Innu-aimun is the language closest to her heart, but all languages matter and deserve support to stay alive.
'Because if the Creator had wanted us all to speak the same language, he would have made it so,' she says.
In fact, the United Nations estimates that of the 7,000 or so languages spoken worldwide today, some 47 per cent are threatened or endangered, most of them Indigenous tongues. In Canada, there are more than 70 distinct Indigenous languages spoken by First Nations, Inuit and Métis, but according to Canada's 2021 census, only 13.1 per cent of the Indigenous population reported knowing how to speak their traditional languages, down from 21.4 per cent in 2006.
What's more, there is not a single Indigenous language in Canada that is not at risk, with the level of peril going from vulnerable (when a given language is still 'used by some children in all domains' or 'by all children in some domains') to definitely, severely and critically endangered (when only a few Elder speakers remain). On the critically endangered list are Haida and Tse'khene/Sekani, both with as few as a dozen speakers. But even Cree, which includes various regional dialects and has more than 86,000 speakers, is considered vulnerable. ('Cree' is the colonial name for these languages and peoples.)
In Canada, the threats against Indigenous language use and proficiency are rooted in colonialism and assimilation policies. Historically, this was accomplished through residential schools, which forced children to speak only English or French and punished those who were caught conversing in their own languages. Consequently, many Indigenous people gave up speaking their mother tongues and did not pass them on to their children, a loss that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, declared a form of cultural genocide.
But several communities and academic institutions across Canada are braiding tradition and technology to strengthen vulnerable languages, or even pull them back from the brink. The FirstVoices website, a joint project by the First Peoples' Cultural Council and the First Peoples' Cultural Foundation, has served as a platform for more than 50 Indigenous nations in Canada, the United States and Australia to share their languages since 2003. And increasingly, Indigenous people are creating websites, apps and online tools, including interactive dictionaries, YouTube beginner courses, grammar and pronunciation guides and archives of stories passed down from elders.
Take York Factory First Nation (YFFN) in northern Manitoba. It wanted a way for members to easily access materials to learn Inineemowin, their dialect of Swampy Cree. Since most youth these days are attached to a smartphone, an app was the logical learning tool. But the First Nation also wanted a resource that would reflect who and where they are, and where they come from—an app steeped in history and the local context.
So when Jordan Dysart, a Cree-Métis software developer with Winnipeg-based Vincent Design, was tasked with creating YFFN's Inineemowin language app, he looked to the nation's knowledge holders.
'To capture the specifics, you need to be sensitive regarding cultural knowledge and what you put forward,' he says, adding that the app, built mainly for YFFN's members, would also be out there for anyone to use.
Together with a language committee and cultural advisers from the community, and in collaboration with the Winnipeg design firm HTFC, they workshopped ways to deliver grammar in a non-academic, grassroots way. The result features audio files and flashcards based on aspects, objects and activities specific to the nation's location and culture.
Through its eight-module Learning Pathway, it guides beginners through basic Swampy Cree grammar, vocabulary and phrases through activities that would take place on the land, such as observing and tracking animals, but also through traditional skills like hunting and sewing.
'They wanted to share their story in their specific language,' says Mr. Dysart about York Factory First Nation. 'The Inineemowin app is a fingerprint of the community.'
One in a regular series of stories. To read more, visit our Indigenous Enterprises section. If you have suggestions for future stories, reach out to IE@globeandmail.com.
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