New app to teach Anishinaabemowin language in friendly, but competitive, way

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Aanii.

It means “hello” in Anishinaabemowin and it’s the first word you’ll learn in a new Indigenous-designed app that aims to use people’s competitive nature to revitalize a language and potentially improve reconciliation efforts with First Nations.

The app works through a series of short lessons that introduces users to a few common words and phrases in Anishinaabemowin. It’s one part of a wider language-revitalization initiative, Challenge 4 Change, which was designed by members of the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Nation on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, with help from a Toronto tech company, Synergiq Solutions.

The app is one of many launched in the past few years that aim to preserve Indigenous languages, but unlike others, users earn points for each lesson completed and can see where they rank on a leader-board.

“People are competitive in nature and I think that [the app is] complex enough and it’s interactive enough that … people will want to ensure that they continue at it and move up on the leader-board,” Wiikwemkoong Chief Duke Peltier said.

The end goal is setting up an online community where anyone can learn Anishinaabemowin, which Mr. Peltier said “would be like having a grandparent who has the language available to you at any given time.”

“Our goal is to obviously revitalize the language and art community, but also to provide our neighbours a tool and a resource that they can also access, to recognize that there is another language that is spoken in this territory,” he said. “There’s a role for everyone to ensure that our language survives.”

Getting that knowledge online involves a group of Anishinaabemowin speakers sitting together over coffee and going through scenarios – such as making a meal in the kitchen – in the language, then meticulously uploading words and phrases online.

“And then it triggers, because they’re in groups, ‘Oh yeah, I remember this other word,’ ” Mr. Peltier said.

The initiative is a pilot, Mr. Peltier said, which other First Nations may eventually emulate to spread awareness of their own languages. For now, he said, the app is a way that Indigenous youth can get in touch with their culture and non-Indigenous people can contribute to reconciliation.

Indigenous language loss in Canada is a “huge” problem, said Daisy Rosenblum, a First Nations and endangered languages assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. More than 70 Indigenous languages are spoken in the country and the vast majority are endangered. As a result of residential schools and other policies aimed at assimilating Indigenous peoples, most communities have few speakers left, she said.

Mr. Peltier said it was important to make sure the Anishinaabemowin language survives because he sees it as “the heartbeat of our people.”

The Wiikwemkoong initiative comes at a time when restoring Indigenous languages is vital and timely. The final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said one of the impacts of residential schools was language loss, enforced through physical abuse and felt through generations.

Ms. Rosenblum said it was important for non-Indigenous Canadians to be aware of how the loss of a community’s language can affect them.

“For those of us who just grew up speaking English or just grew up speaking French, we don’t necessarily think of a connection between our language and our identity or our language and our land or territory,” she said, while for Indigenous peoples, “there’s a very strong connection between the language that they speak, the way that they see themselves as people and the territory that they occupy. So the loss of that connection is felt very acutely.”

The app can be downloaded on the App Store or Google Play.

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