More languages on mobile
Canadian Heritage gives money to add languages to learning app
Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 12, 2015
PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG
The home-grown mobile app that teaches Inuktitut through song will grow this year to include an additional four aboriginal languages, thanks to a federal grant, and another language, through a partnership with Gwich'in First Nation.
Pangnirtung-based Pinnguaq is getting a boost to update its language-learning app, Singuistics. The federal government is giving $82,859 to add four languages to the app, and the Gwich'in First Nation is joining in, too. - photo courtesy of Pinnguaq |
"It's kind of validity for the original idea of Singuistics," said Ryan Oliver, director of Pangnirtung's Pinnguaq Association, the non-profit that developed the app.
The federal government's Aboriginal Languages Initiative is giving the association $82,859 to add Cree, Ojibwe, Dene and Mi'kmaq to the free iPad app.
"It allows us to continue to grow it and make it better," Oliver said. "As far as I'm aware, it will be the only app that exists that covers multiple indigenous languages in one location."
The addition of Gwich'in will bring a sixth language to the app. The original app was kickstarted in December 2013 by a $15,000 grant from Nunavut's Department of Culture and Heritage.
"Our government is proud to invest in new technology that will help strengthen the cultural identity of Nunavummiut," Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq said, announcing the funding on behalf of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages Minister Shelly Glover. "I would like to commend the Pinnguaq Association for developing new interactive tools to support the preservation of aboriginal languages in Canada."
The forthcoming update to the app will include three songs from each of the five new languages, complete with lyrics and art that portrays the culture. Four new Inuktitut songs will also be added. Oliver is in talks with a group in Cambridge Bay to bring Inuinnaqtun to the app.
"It's as much about passing on the culture as it is the language itself," he said. "No one listening to music is going to become proficient in the language overnight the way you would with a pure language-learning app. This gives a nice foot in the door to not only the language but also the culture."
Oliver comes from an aboriginal studies background, and is using his connections at Trent University to build a strong team for creating the update. More than half of the federal funding will go back to the First Nations communities involved in the project update to pay musicians, artists, and language teachers, he said.
"We have everyone we need in place," he said. "We're able to use language teachers at a university level to put together language lessons. It's going to be important to have strong language teachers. So far, so good."
About 1,000 people have downloaded the app, and Oliver has heard that some universities are using it to introduce students to Inuktitut. The app update should increase its exposure in communities using the other languages when it's released in the late spring or early summer of 2015, he said.
