Reconnecting With Linguistic and Cultural Roots Via App

Reviving a long-unspoken language with the power to build bridges between young people and their  First Nations heritage is no easy task. But trust a group of next-gen students to warm to an outside the box route to making this easier. And their enthusiasm is all thanks to their dedicated high school teacher, Vern Lewis, As CBC NEWS reports.

Cellphones Permitted in This Classroom!

This innovative teacher’s classroom is unlike most others! Here, Frog Lake First Nation pupils at Tustukeeskaws High School in east-central Alberta, Canada, are actively encouraged to use their cellphones to help revive their traditional Cree language. An app, developed by their proud teacher, Lewis, who has a background in computer science, is empowering them to learn and teach Cree to their peers and families.

Here’s how Lewis himself puts it: “ I had an idea; instead of creating an app that will tell you what this word means, like a dictionary — and there’s quite a few of them online — I wanted to create something they could use in terms of phrases.”

Not all students warmed to the app, “How do I say this in Cree, ” from the get-go. Grade 10 student Gabriel Morris shared with CBC News that when his teacher pitched his idea, he thought it might not work, though he found it an interesting initiative. One month in, however, Morris is a fan. Together with his immediate family, he is using the app to reverse their disconnect from tradition due to their lack of fluency in Cree.

“The Cree language is kind of hanging on by a string, and we need people to actually speak the language, “ Morris explains. “So I feel like by learning Cree, I’m doing my part to preserve it. And it’s part of our culture too, so it’s a very important aspect of Cree culture.”

His teacher, meanwhile, is very positive about the potential of the app to build bridges between next generation First Nation students, and their heritage. He reveals that while his generation, and the generation that follows his do speak Cree, for some reason, they don’t talk to their children, who he sees as “saturated in English”  in Cree, and he wants to reclaim linguistic ability in Cree for them through his app. 

Lewis also believes that the wisdom of the community’s elders is much more meaningful when spoken in Cree than in English. 

Another keen user is the school’s gardener, Patti Brown. While trying to learn the language using textbooks didn’t work for her, she finds the phrase-based teaching method, together with the many audio examples, let her hold a conversation in Cree, and transmit that new knowledge to students.

Rediscovering Precious Traditions Through Tech

Currently, users of How do I say this in Cree access the app by using a QR code that changes with every update. In the longer term, Lewis hopes that his app will become popular in other First Nations schools across Canada. He also hopes to open up access to non-Indigenous users wishing to learn the language.

Significantly, Lewis’s app isn’t the first user-friendly app or even social media aiming to revive the Cree language. Searches on Google Play and Apple’s App Store yield a rich choice of Cree language apps.

The Edmonton Journal detailed a local app, “KTCEA Elders Speak” produced several years ago for five Nations communities in the area that has already been viewed by tens of thousands of people globally. What the creators of this app underline is its role in fighting back against the pressures of social media and majority-English entertainment that next-gen youngsters are surrounded by. 

They emphasize the knowledge-carrying function  of Cree, as well as how this knowledge instills a sense of respect for this language in next-gen learners, whose elders may have been prohibited from speaking Cree or practicing their traditions in public under the despised  Indian Residential School System that sought to eradicate Indigenous culture.

 “The students will hear the voices of their mushums and kookums, their grandparents, and that will instill pride in them, “ says Audrey Anderson, of the Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council Education Authority (KTCEA). 

In 2024, as Windspeaker reports, a First Nations community in northern Manitoba launched its Cree language learning app, “Inineemowin.”

With funding from Heritage Canada’s Indigenous Languages Program, Vincent Design Inc,. an Indigenous-led Winnipeg design creative agency, turned an idea from York Factory First Nation (YFFN) community language experts, and turned it into reality. Today, this app serves as an interactive platform where users from the community can familiarize themselves with not only the words, but also the children’s stories, photographs, landmarks and teachings of their heritage.

This app guides users through eight lesson modules that introduce essential grammar and phrases in the context of cultural traditions including sewing and winter carnival. It also includes audio examples to optimize pronunciation.

“It’s a wonderful resource for the young people, “ a YFFN councillor,  Louisa Constant, shares enthusiastically. “They are loving it at home. There have been so many downloads by the younger generations. It’s wonderful work.”

The Inineemowin app is available on both the App Store and  Google Play