A new Cree language app is now available after the launch event that took place on Friday, October 25, 2024, in Montreal Lake Cree Nation.
“The idea came from a group of people, a group of individuals who wanted to do something to preserve our Cree language,” said Charlotte Ross, the project coordinator for the Montreal Lake Cree Nation (MLCN) Cree language app.
During the launch of the app the committee were offered gifts, the women from the language committee were gifted ribbon skirts and the men were gifted ribbon shirts, to acknowledge their work in preserving the woodland Cree language for their community.
“In particular in our community, we thought of community members who are wanting to learn language and of people who are separated from family or separated from community, and they don’t have access to speakers,” explained Ross.
That helped identify the areas that was needed to build the categories lists.
Montreal Lake Cree Nation wanted to be able to support the Woodland Cree language, and with providing this app they were able to.
“There isn’t very much for Swampy or for Woodland Cree, and that was one of the reasons why we wanted to be able to support the Woodland Cree language,” said Ross.
The time it took to create the language app was about four months of just planning and figuring out what to do, and then about two years of just working on the content. So a total of about two and a half years went into making the app.
The new MLCN language app has 46 categories and 1,150 terms and phrases. The categories range from animals to weather descriptions.
The nihthanwin language committee worked on the content and voiced the recorded words for the language app, they are the language keepers for the community.
The app is now available and can be found on the LifeSpark app.
Photo: At the launch of the MLCN Cree language app, the language committee were gifted skirts/ provided by Abel Charles.