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opinions // no. 24

¢ How internet providers could help
empower Indigenous people

¢ War of the Words: Does Canada have
culture?

..and more

How internet providers could help
empower Indigenous people

» If BC wants to start renaming areas with Indigenous names,

they should coordinate with internet companies

Craig Allan
Business Manager

 

here has been a lot of talk this

year about how to reconcile with
Indigenous people in regards to
residential schools, and giving them
more recognition as the original curators
of Canadian lands. One way has been
the renaming, or co-naming of areas to
highlight Indigenous names.

Two months ago, the Riverview
Hospital Lands in Coquitlam was
renamed somiqworels/Riverview Lands.
This is part of an effort by regional
governments to reflect the presence and
historic significance of First Nations
groups across the lower mainland.
Alongside somiqwo?els, (which means
“Place of the Great Blue Heron”), Queen
Elizabeth Theatre Plaza, has been
renamed &x*Zexon Xwtl’a7shn, and the

north end of the Vancouver Art Gallery, is
now &x“Zonoq Xwtl'ezéenk.

These name changes would be
a great way to acknowledge the First
Nations people and their history with
the land. I say “would” because no
matter what name they use, people are
still likely going to call the areas by their
more common and easier to read western
names.

This reason stems from
pronunciation errors and from spelling.
This can be remedied by continually
practicing the saying the names and
reviewing pronunciation boards at the
site, but the spelling issue is a more
difficult problem.

In that first paragraph, I had to look
up what those names were, and direct
copy them into this article because I don’t
know how to write those names. How do I
type a small “W” with space underneath?

Is there even a backwards question

mark function? I don’t know, but Iam
certainly not going to spend time pressing
Ctrl+Shift and mashing every key until I
find where each letter is. Unfortunately,

I don't have the time, or the patience, for
that.

So, how does this problem get fixed?
Connecting lands with an Indigenous
identity is a good idea, but if it is going
to be done it has to be better coordinated
with internet companies and social
media. Governments and First Nations
groups should coordinate re-naming
efforts with Google, Microsoft, Facebook,
and any other company that maintain a
large computer, internet, and/or social
media presence. Email services like
Microsoft Outlook and Gmail already
have predictive text functions and spell
checks. Since that technology exists, then
surely there must be a way to coordinate

that with Indigenous names. Maybe
creating a function that knows when ina
certain region if names like “Riverview”
or “Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza”

are typed, a predictive function can
recommend their First Nations names;
this can also be used for Microsoft Word
and other functions. They could even get
the websites to have a function that will
help pronounce/read-aloud the name if
someone is attempting to use it.

The value of this is to make it easier
for everyone to use, and better associate,
these places with their original First
Nations names. The reason why we do
land acknowledgements is to ingrain
the presence of these names, culture,
and groups so that in future generations
the use of these names is as common as
saying “Burnaby” or “Surrey.” Making it
easier to say and type these names will go
a long way to achieving that goal.