There are less than 12 fluid speakers in northern Tutchone in the remote community of May, Yukon, and many of them are elderly.
The first nation of Na-Cho Nyӓk Dun has resorted to technology to help preserve the language.
The project is called Kwän Dék’án ‘do, or “to keep the fire burning.”
In collaboration with the University of Carleton and the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages, the first nation is using virtual reality games and a holographic exhibition as teaching tools.
They are also building a digital file of community objects and building a digital language model backed by artificial intelligence.
In May’s Community Hall, the professor at the University of Carleton, Ali Arya, is facing what seems like a large white box.
‘I have chicken skin’
“The main attraction of this particular device is that it allows you to have a virtual presence that is very attractive, very three -dimensional and realistic,” he said.
With some blows to their fingers, it moves to the icons beyond the elderly faces and select one.
Suddenly, Walter Peter, 78, seems to be sitting inside the box and begins to tell a story.
“It’s surprising,” said Krystal Profit, a community member who appeared to the demonstration. “I really have chicken skin.”
The University First brought the devices for meetings, as a way to improve the connection between school and NYӓK DUN First Nation. But soon, discussions were being carried out on how it could be used: the first nation saw the potential when using the device as an educational tool for community children.
“We are a small community, and there are always problems to get teachers here,” said the Heritage Manager of First Nation, Teresa Samson. “I started to think that it would be great if we could irronate them.”
The group did not take long to consider how the devices could be used to address one of the most pressing challenges for the community: the loss of their elders, and with them, generations of knowledge about the language and culture of northern Tutchone.
Elder Franklin Lee Patterson, 70, said it was reluctant when he first learned the project.
“Our young people are talking on the phone, playing,” he said. “They don’t listen to you, they don’t recognize you. They just want to do what is on that phone. I see some four -year -old children, they have learned that it is a good babysitter.”
“In our day, the care of children was totally different. We mounted on our mother’s back inside a strap with accounts, and we learned the language, we learned to make our culture, through our years of childhood.
‘We have to get involved with change’
“But now, I have woken up, and I have thought about it, and I have thought … the change: we have to get involved with the change to make it good for children. And to teach them through this hologram. So I’m going to sit in this hologram and give it the best opportunity I can.
“When I go to the spiritual world, I will leave my knowledge behind that machine.”
At first, the language project was intimidating for the elderly for another reason: the uncertainty about who could access technology and how it could be used.
“I thought: ‘I’m going to give my knowledge and what are you going to do with that? Where are you going to go?'” Patterson said. “The rest of the world is going to take it. It worried me a little.”
Patterson was not the only one with concerns.
“There is a lot of fear that other people use our information, misrepresenting us,” Samson said. “A lot of conversation about how indigenous knowledge protects. You really have to trust your partners.”
But Samson said that the relationship that has been built between Carleton and the first nation in the last 40 years is special and allowed them to embark on an exceptionally ambitious project: to collect enough interview data, old cassette tapes and files as far as the Native Language Center of Alaska to build a language model.
That model, backed by AI, hopefully one day you can allow conversations with students, translate handwritten lyrics, suggest interpretations and even generate new words and phrases.
The software will be open source, and although community members can only access NYӓK DUN, community members, the system will be accessible to other first nations.
Indigenous languages in danger of extinction
“We will be able to deliver the skeleton to another person and say: ‘Look what we did with ours. You can also do it. Here is the frame,” Samson said. “I think that’s really important.”
Several indigenous languages throughout the country are in danger of critical extinction, said indigenous language commissioner Ronald Ignace.
Some only have one or two speakers.
The Church and the Government, he said, “denigrated, denied and belittled” indigenous languages, and the impact continues today.
“Language is the cradle of our spirit,” he said.
“And if we want to raise our spirit, which has been mistreated and bruised through the centuries, we need to revitalize our languages, because that is what we are.”
Walter Peter was sent to the residential school in Carcross when I was a child. Years later, Peter said, many of his friends still spoke in English instead of northern Tutchone.
“I think they were ashamed to speak our language,” he said.
Now, Peter, along with Patterson, is one of the few remaining speakers.
The language project began earlier this year, in January. Only a few weeks later, the community lost the beloved Elder Jimmy Johnny, an imposing presence in May and beyond.
‘We have a piece of him still’
“The feeling of urgency feels very strong here, because in the year we have been working on this project, several elders who speak of northern Tutchone have left us,” said Troy Anderson, a professor at the University of Carleton.
“Just take home how important this work is to do as quickly as possible.”
Johnny, who was a firm defender of learning the north of Tutchone and that Samson said he became a project defender, could be registered for the holographic exhibition before death.
“I turned it on, and there was a gasp, because it was like Jimmy Johnny was in the room again,” he said, crying. “And that makes me happy to know that we still have a piece of him.”
Patterson said it was like seeing his best friend again.
“It seemed so real,” he said. “Seeing it in that hologram … It is surprising what you can do with technology.”
