The dialect platform of the Native Communications Society of the NWT
Through many voices,
a living library of dialects.
CIRCLE is a CMS for northern dialects and media content, powering the learning games hosted through the Native Communications Society of the NWT.
What CIRCLE holds
One shared library, built around the word.
Every entry begins with an English anchor word: the word, a picture, and a clear pronunciation. Around it gather the renditions that matter, the spelling and the recorded voice for each dialect and each community that speaks it. A word can be said many ways in many places, and CIRCLE keeps them all, side by side, each credited to the community and the keeper it came from.
Nothing goes live the moment it is typed. New words, spellings and recordings arrive as submissions, and become part of the library only once a reviewer approves them. Saved is not the same as published, and that line is on purpose.
What people do here
The work of keeping a dialect, made into everyday tools.
A keeper chooses a region, a dialect and a community, then records and submits the word in their own voice. It works on an iPad in the field, and consent is captured with the recording.
Dialect spellings are written by hand on a board with an on-screen palette for the orthographies that need special characters. The Indigenous spelling is always authored by a person, never guessed by a machine.
Artwork and photographs are matched to words with their attribution and consent, so the word, its picture and its voice stay together.
A shared daily board shows what needs attention across words, audio, access and withdrawals. A reviewer claims an item, approves it or sends it back with a note, and the whole history is kept.
A coverage view shows, community by community, which words still need a spelling or a voice, so effort goes where it is needed most.
Accounts are provisioned by hand, with no public sign-up and no passwords, only a magic link. Each person is given exactly the role, the communities and the dialects they work with.
Who it is for
Everyone who has a hand in the dialect, and no one who does not.
Elders and speakers whose recordings and knowledge are the heart of the library, each credited and consenting.
Those who draw on the library's words, voices and images in their work.
Field collectors and artists who bring in recordings and images from across the communities.
The people who review, publish, provision accounts and keep the library healthy.
The library keeps it, the tools put it to work
Content is kept in one place, apart from wherever it is used.
CIRCLE is a CMS for northern dialects and media content, powering the learning games hosted through the Native Communications Society of the NWT. The content is kept in one place, apart from wherever it is put to use.
Built with care
The choices that protect the dialect and the people in it.
- ✓The dialects stay in the hands of the community. Indigenous spellings and voices are always authored by a person. Any machine help is kept to the English side only.
- ✓Consent travels with the content. Every recording carries the permission of the person who gave it, and a voice can be credited or withdrawn.
- ✓Kept in Canada. The library and its recordings are hosted in Canada.
- ✓Every change is remembered. Who submitted, who approved, and what was said is kept as an audit trail, and the original can be seen and heard again.
- ✓No advertising, no tracking, no training. The content is the community's, gathered for the dialect, and nothing else.
A library, not a vault. CIRCLE is meant to grow. It starts with the words a community needs, at zero, and fills in over time as keepers record and reviewers publish, until the whole of a dialect has a voice and a face for every word.