A new texting app for Facebook Chat and Google Talk is now available for Aboriginal people wanting to communicate in their original language.
FirstVoices Chat has been released after about ten years of preparation by the First People’s Cultural Council in British Columbia.
The app contains custom keyboards for hundreds of Indigenous languages in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Council chair Dr. Lorna Williams says the app can accommodate all Indigenous languages in Canada:
“That’s 50 languages, plus some of the dialects, the Roman-based alphabet . . . and it’s also available for the ones that use syllabics.”
Williams says the effort is aimed at Aboriginal youth learning their language, and it is a free download at the First Voices website.