The Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO) and ELP partner Supporting Indigenous Language Revitalization (SILR) at the University of Alberta recently published Safeguarding Your Language Through Documentation: A Toolkit for Beginners. 

This toolkit is designed for people without formal training in linguistics, documentation or technology. It is a simple and easy-to-follow guide to equipment options, ethical considerations, how to set up a recording session, content considerations, elicitation strategies and more. The practical steps aim to support language learners, Knowledge Holders, youth, and anyone else on their language documentation journeys.

The toolkit is written by Aiyana Twigg, who is Ktunaxa on her mother’s side, and Blackfoot, registered blood tribe, treaty 7 territory on her father’s side. Aiyana grew up on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Ktunaxa in yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡiʔit (Tobacco Plains). She is currently working towards a Master of Education in Indigenous Language Revitalization at the University of Victoria. In 2022, she completed a BA at the University of British Columbia with a double major in First Nations and Endangered Languages and Linguistic Anthropology.