The First Peoples' Cultural Council is a unique organization in Canada. As a First Nations-run Crown corporation with a mandate to support the revitalization of Indigenous languages, arts, culture and heritage in British Columbia, First Peoples’ Cultural Council provides funding and resources to communities, monitors the status of Indigenous languages and develops policy recommendations for First Nations and government.

New funding

The B.C. government has committed a significant investment of $50 million to support Indigenous language. This funding is the result of many years of advocacy, educating policy makers, and developing investment models by First Peoples’ Cultural Council and community partners.

Why Indigenous language revitalization matters

Restoring connections to Indigenous language and culture builds resilience and supports healthy individuals and communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action report outlines the need to protect and invest in the restoration of Indigenous languages as a concrete step toward reconciliation. Knowing and being able to speak one’s language is recognized as a human right for Indigenous peoples. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples identifies that Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons. First Peoples’ Cultural Council has been working with the Assembly of First Nations and the federal government to advance the recognition and protection of Indigenous language rights in federal law.

How the funding will be used

The new funding will be used for language preservation and revitalization activities, including community grants, community language planning, and documentation and training aimed at rebuilding community-based language supports. The funding will also be used to expand language immersion programs and learning resources to support Indigenous languages in communities throughout the province.

The First Peoples’ Cultural Council has served First Nations in B.C. for 28 years. The First Peoples’ Cultural Council has mapped and documented Indigenous languages in B.C.; built tools and programs in community and online that support language learning; created partnerships with communities throughout the province; and worked with leaders in Indigenous languages around the globe to share their pioneering and proven approaches to language reclamation, documentation and revitalization.

Their efforts have been recognized as establishing British Columbia and Canada as leaders in Indigenous language revitalization. Limited resources have meant that the First Peoples' Cultural Council were able to touch only a handful (10% or less) of the Indigenous languages in the province. With this new provincial funding, it will work with the Indigenous language groups and communities that belong to the same cultural groups and speak the same language throughout the province. The program will be flexible in order to respond to the needs of the community. First Peoples’ Cultural Council works collaboratively with communities, supporting leading language work led by Elders and other knowledge keepers of the land.

Language programs supported in communities include:

• The Mentor-Apprentice program pairs a fluent language speaker (mentor) with a language learner (apprentice) to transfer language knowledge and increase fluency.
• FirstVoices is the internationally recognized online Indigenous language archiving and teaching resource that allows Indigenous communities to document their language for future generations. FirstVoices provides state-of-the-art technologies, training and technical support to community language champions. Teams of fluent Elders and technically savvy youth upload dictionaries, alphabets, songs, stories, words and phrases, as well as audio and video to their community archives. FirstVoices keyboards includes apps for Apple and Android mobile devices, and more.
• The Silent Speaker program is for people who understand, but do not speak, their First Nations language. The course is based on a successful program that was developed in Norway and Sweden for, and by, Indigenous Sami people. The model uses cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) to support silent speakers in overcoming barriers to using their Indigenous language in their communities.
• The Pre-School Language Nest program creates language and cultural immersion environments for pre-school children and their parents. In addition to creating an immersion environment with staff, volunteers and Elders, Language Nests allow young parents to learn the language and bring it back into their homes and daily lives, which is necessary for revitalizing a language.
• First Peoples’ Cultural Council partners with Google.org on the Endangered Languages project, whose governance First Peoples’ Cultural Council chairs.

To learn about the First Peoples’ Cultural Council’s language documentation website, visit: www.firstvoices.com

To find out more about Indigenous languages legislation in Canada, visit: www.fpcc.ca/language/Legislation/

To see current calls for language funding, visit:  www.fpcc.ca/Grants/Language/