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Introduction

The story of WordWeaver​

WordWeaver is the outcome of multiple years of collaborative research between the Canadian National Research Council's Indigenous Language Technology (ILT) project and the Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa (Our Language Society) Kanyen'kéha immersion school in the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.

Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa & Kawennón:nis​

The school takes students through 2000 hours of Kanyen'kéha immersion over two years. Kanyen'kéha is an Iroquoian language, commonly known as Mohawk, that is spoken across territory that spans present-day Ontario, Quebec and New York State. Kanyen'kéha is an extremely complex language, and understanding how to conjugate verbs is central to gaining conversational competency in the language. In the early stages of the ILT project, Owennatékha Brian Maracle, the director of Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa, proposed a project around creating verb conjugators. The proposed tool would be a helpful reference for learners and teachers alike, and would have to be a digital tool, as even a basic inventory of verbs in Kanyen'kéha could produce hundreds of thousands of unique conjugations, far too many to be printed out as a book.

So, the collaboration was formed, and a team of researchers from NRC joined a group of teachers at Onkwawenna Kentyohkwa to develop Kawennón:nis (lit. it makes words).

WordWeaver​

As the ILT has a national scope, NRC did not want to create just one verb conjugator, but rather create a framework that other communities could adapt to create their own WordWeavers. The tool documented here is the result of this work and the guides contained in this site show you how to build your own WordWeavers and do everything from using your own language, providing your own translation of the entire site, or adapting the colour theme used in the site.

WordWeaver has a number of important features that are custom-designed for language revitalization purposes.

Important features for language revitalization​

  • It is available online and offline
  • WordWeaver is serverless, meaning you can deploy it for free and not worry about maintaining a server
  • It supports a wide variety of data formats
  • The site is translated out-of-the-box in English and French, but you can also add your own language thanks to full i18n support
  • You can customize the look and feel of your WordWeaver by changing the colour themes and by uploading your own custom artwork
  • It is available on the web, and on mobile