> The Top End Linguistic Circle of Northern Australia is holding a meeting
> in early June at the Centre for Aboriginal languages and linguistics at
> Batchelor College in the Northern Territory, and we are thinking of having
> a session on computer language learning and language awareness programs,
> for Aboriginal languages, especially those based on Hypercard. The
> Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre has had some success with
> such programs and we are hoping to get some examples from Alaska to demon-
> strate too. Any information about other initiatives along these lines would
> be gratefully received, as well as offers of sending programs - we should
> be able to arrange exchange with Australian material.
>
> Patrick McConvell, Convener, TELC
> Anthropology, NT University
> PO Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0810, Australia
Patrick:
My name is Glenn Morrison, and I am working as the National Coordinator
for the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres, a national
Association serving 71 Aboriginal cultural centres across Canada, most of
them located on-reserve and in our Aboriginal communities.
At least two of our Centres are currently involved in language work using
Hypercard, those being the Woodland Cultural Centre, located on the
Six Nations Reserve near Brantford (about 45 minutes southwest of Toronto);
and also the Heiltsuk Cultural Centre in Bella Bella, on the upper coast of
British Columbia. Neither of these Centres have access to the INTERNET or
echo-mail, but these are technical matters that I am currently working at
solving. You will have to be in contact with these Centres by mail or fax.
Amos Key (Woodlands) has been developing various programs and curriculums
for several of the Iroquoian languages (Cayuga, Mohawk) for several years
now, and Jennifer Carpenter (Heiltsuk) is also involved with similar
projects in her communities. These folks can be reached at:
Amos Key Jennifer Carpenter
Woodlands Cultural Centre Heiltsuk Cultural Education Centre
P.O. Box 1506 Box 880
Brantford, Ontario Waglisla, B.C.
N3T 5V6 V0T 1Z0
The FNCCEC currently has an ongoing project involving character
standardization, computer coding and ISO (Geneva) acceptance of the
syllabic characters of three main Aboriginal language groups: Cree,
Algonquian and Inuktitut. Some of the next steps in this project will be
the establishmeny of syllabic keyboards for each group and computer sort
orders. We intend that the completed work will enable Aboriginal
businesses/governments in the communities/territories that use these
syllabics to work in their syllabic languages, instead of relying on
English. Software development in the syllabic languages is also an
additional and logical outcome. If you are interested in information on
this project ("CCALS" for Computer Coding of Aboriginal Language Syllabics)
you can contact:
Dirk or Carla Vermeulen or Paul Green
4834 Tufford Road First Nations Technical Institute
Beamsville, Ontario 1-800-267-0637
L0R 1B0
You can also reach Carla, Dirk or Paul through my office, at the address:
gmorris2@fox.nstn.ns.ca
[ I think Dirk can also be reached directly at "dirkv-casec@immedia.ca"
--Gary]
Good luck in your language projects and your upcoming workshops!
Glenn
--
Glenn Morrison
gmorris2@fox.nstn.ns.ca