By Michelle Tirado
August 18, 2009

Hand-held video games, iPhones and iPods are the top toys of today’s kids, and they spend hours and hours every day on them. But, just as one Native American-owned company has figured out, these interactive gizmos can also be great language-learning tools.

This summer, Banning, Calif.-based Thornton Media introduced its Language Pal, software that can program an indigenous language onto Nintendo DSi hand-held consoles and the first ever Native American language iPhone/iPod app.

Thornton Media believes that teaching the youth is one key to preserving a tribe’s language. And what is a good way to engage the youth? Technology, of course.

Don Thornton, president of Thornton Media and Cherokee, said, “Kids nowadays are growing up with hand-helds, computers, broadband Internet. They don’t know anything else.”

Language Pal can program audio recordings in multiple dialects from multiple speakers as well as electronic flashcards and multiple-choice games. It has a searchable database that can store tens of thousands of audio files. The software is not an official Nintendo title, rather it is a “homebrew” software created by an authorized Nintendo developer.

The iPod/iPhone app, available at iTunes for $9.99, is called Cherokee Basic. It includes 467 audio files by native Cherokee speakers (Oklahoma dialect); 84 separate Cherokee alphabet audio files; professionally recorded lessons; a zoom-able syllabary chart; phonetic spelling; and Unicode fonts.

Two tribes, the Eastern Band of Cherokee in North Carolina and the Nez Perce in Idaho, have already decided to use the Language Pal for Nintendo DSi.

Angel Sobotta, Administration for Native Americans grant administrator and language coordinator for the Nez Perce, said the consoles were programmed in July so that they could be used during its 10th Annual Cultural Camp in Wallowa, Ore., which runs Aug. 4-6 for 7th-12th graders and Aug. 11-13 for 3rd-6th graders.

The camp’s theme this year is “Kiwkiwil’ec hiiwes niimiipuum tim’neenm luk’uupin,” translating to “The drum is the heartbeat of our people.” Campers will learn about the traditional Niimiipuu song along with dancing and drumming.

They also get a CD and accompanying workbook full of words to learn. “But this year they will experiment with the Nintendo DSi, having the same information and pictures and words and voice recordings. We hope this will make it more fun for them to learn and encourage them to join our Language Club,” Sobotta said.

The Nez Perce Language Program, through a partnership with the tribe’s Students for Success program, will also use them for the Nez Perce Language Club this fall to help ready students for a language knowledge bowl in November, according to Sobotta, and they will be used by the Nez Perce Early Childhood Development Program to teach both children and their parents.

“Not all people learn the same way and not all enjoy the classroom setting. So, this is one reason why we explore technology,” Sobotta said.

The Cherokee iPod/iPhone app is the only one that Thornton Media will sell. The company does not want to exploit tribal languages in any way, Thornton said. It developed the app because he is Cherokee (three of the five speakers on the app are his relatives).

A tribe, however, can hire the company to develop an app, costing about $12,000. The tribe, Thornton said, can distribute it any way it wants, whether it is selling it or giving it away for free on iTunes or through a limited in-house distribution.

“Most tribes are not going to want to put it out there for everybody. Most will only want to make it available to tribal members,” he said.

The Language Pal for Nintendo DSi costs about $12,000 also, requiring a minimum order of 20 consoles and coming with on-site training.

Thornton said that in another year or so it plans to offer the DSi to people who just want one console. It would cost about $500, but the training would be delivered via video online.

“Our whole business plan has been to get the cost down low enough so that families can buy it and record their own relatives,” he said.

These are not Thornton Media’s first technology (and fun)-driven language-learning tools. In 2008, it debuted its iRez Language Pal, a hand-held language-teaching device that can hold up to 85,000 phrases and words and records and translates audio and video files. A year earlier, it developed RezWorld, a full-immersion, 3-D video game that can be custom-programmed for a native language.