Preserving Aboriginal Languages (culture.ca)

From culture.ca:

Internet Helps Save Aboriginal Languages

Aboriginal languages in Canada are getting a new lease on life, thanks to the Internet.
Organizations such as First Voices create online databases of aboriginal languages to help save them from extinction. Peter Brand is the coordinator of the B.C.-based FirstVoices. According to Brand, every two weeks an aboriginal language dies out somewhere in the world with the death of its last speaker.

In Canada’s 2001 census 976,305 people identified themselves as North American Indian, Métis or Inuit. But only one-quarter said they could converse in an Aboriginal language.

“[Culture and language] are inextricably tied together,” says Brand, a Tasmanian who moved to B.C. after marrying a Native Canadian. “Once you lose that language, and the people who know those things, you lose the knowledge, and it may be irretrievable.”

How the Technology Works

“In a nutshell, we’ve developed a database,” explains Brand, a teacher who co-invented the non-profit FirstVoices. “Community-based First Nations people are able to use the Web to upload or to document their languages at FirstVoices. They can document words, phrases, stories and songs.”

Community members then upload the information themselves to the online database. The database then provides translations, definitions, sounds, images, and video to support language learning.

http://www.culture.ca/ataglance-coupdoeil-e/languagesaboriginal-languesautochtones_200703.html