FPCC is excited to announce the relaunch of a beta (preview) version of FirstVoices.com, its ground-breaking online Indigenous language archiving and teaching resource.
Over the past two years, the FirstVoices website and back-end system have been significantly upgraded with input from over 50 community partners from across B.C. and feature improved navigation, easier data entry and faster access to language information and resources.
We are continuing to make updates and are seeking feedback from the wider community of First Voices users until March 31, 2018 via a new feedback feature located on the FirstVoices homepage.
FirstVoices.com features the following improvements:
A faster loading website – language administrators will be able to upload larger media files and all users of the site can navigate quickly and easily through the content of an archive.
Time-saving searches – a better search function means that each archive now has its own search tool, which means users can search for words, phrases, songs and stories within a single archive.
New ways to enter data – users can now add multiple sounds files, video and images for a single word or phrase entry, which removes the need for duplicate entries.
FirstVoices was initially launched in 2003 to aid in the preservation of the remaining 34 Indigenous languages in B.C. It provides a space for Indigenous community language teams to archive their languages by recording and uploading words, phrases, songs and stories to a secure, centralized database.
FirstVoices hosts 47 (36 public and 11 private) language archives in B.C., and also supports 70 First Nations communities in Canada, the USA and Australia. Content is entirely controlled and managed by community language administrators.
For more information, visit the new website: www.firstvoices.com.
View the new video about FirstVoices.
Read the full press release.
Media contact:
Megan Lappi
megan@fpcc.ca
We gratefully acknowledge the support of our funding and community partners:
- The Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and the First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation provided funding to rebuild FirstVoices.com’s software architecture, which included upgrading to new technologies to improve the organization and indexing of data and updating the user interface.
- The New Relationship Trust and the Department of Canadian Heritage provided funding to community teams for training to use FirstVoices.com and to upload new content to language archives.
- The B.C. Government Communications and Public Engagement – Government Digital Experience team provided extensive in-kind development services.
- The many FirstVoices administrators, Elders, linguists, students, teachers and everyday users who provided us with feedback to make FirstVoices a more effective language learning resource.
**Note to FirstVoices community language administrators: If you need access to the previous version of your archive, please visit: http://legacy.firstvoices.com.