An augmented reality storytelling App is being used to bring the traditional Secwepemctsín dialect to younger generations.

(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)

SPLATSIN - A young girl brushes the hair out of her face and raises an iPad above a square filled with grey, triangular shapes. After a brief pause, the iPad lights up with a 3D image of a forest.

“Got it,” a boy sitting beside her says with excitement. 

Narration in the Splatsin’s traditional language, Secwepemctsin, begins to spill out of the device as the two delighted children listen intently to a story about how Porcupine got his coat.

This new augmented reality app is helping revitalize the traditional Secwepemctsin dialect, a language spoken by just 10 to 15 people in the community, most of them in their 90s, says Aaron Leon, president of the Tsm7aksaltn Splatsin Teaching Centre. Stamped out by residential schools and the era of the Sixties Scoop, the language is considered endangered.

“It’s pretty dire,” Leon says.

The app is a collaboration between the Splatsin teaching centre and UBC Okanagan master’s student David Lacho, who spent the past two years consulting with the community and building the app. On Monday, March 26, members of the public got to test out the app during an open house at the Splatsin Community Centre in Enderby.

“There’s a huge range of responses from ‘this is really cool technology’ to really emotional responses of seeing and hearing your language that you maybe haven’t heard before, especially in technology,” Lacho says.

To use the app, you simply hover your iPad or phone over the square code and a 3D model will appear. English subtitles appear at the bottom as the voice of a Splatsin elder narrates the story. The interactive app allows the user to move around within the scene, zooming in and out and viewing the image from different angles.

“It’s kind of an adventure for the person that’s using it,” Lacho says.

The use of digital media, and specifically augmented reality, to preserve endangered languages is quite new and the project has definitely been getting noticed.

“It’s made waves in the community and across B.C.,” Lacho says.

Local resident Sk'wlnst Maureen Roberts tried the app out for the first time on Monday with her granddaughter.

“I thought it was really, really neat,” she says.

Roberts has been taking every opportunity to learn her traditional language, and says it’s great to see the app making it more accessible.

“In order for us not to lose our language, I feel it needs to be shared with everybody,” she says. 

For Leon, who is 29 and learning Secwepemctsin himself, it’s empowering to hear the language and see youth picking up words and phrases. He says while some members of the community might know the language, they haven’t spoken it for years due to the impact of residential schools.

“We’ve only really seen a shift in the last ten years or so to an acceptance of the language and indigenous voices in history,” he says.

The stories in the app are based on the play Tuwitames, written by Rosalind Williams, James Tait and Cathy Stubington.

“We’ve had storytelling in our community for a long time, and this app is kind of another iteration of storytelling,” Leon says.

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