Indigenous Languages Typing Game Initiative
About the initiative – One question
This project began with a child’s question.
‘Why don’t we have a Typing Game in Uyghur language?
– 5 year old community member
It was not asked in a classroom or a lab. It came from a five-year-old, in a moment of everyday curiosity. But the question carried weight. It revealed something larger, something about absence. About which languages are visible in digital spaces, and which are not.
Children today grow up surrounded by interfaces: games, apps, keyboards, and platforms designed to teach, entertain, and engage. But for many Indigenous and minoritized languages, these spaces remain largely empty. There are a few tools. Few games. Few opportunities for children to play, learn, and grow in their own languages through digital media.
We took that question seriously. This project is one response.
The Indigenous Languages Typing Game Initiative is a student-led, community-rooted digital humanities project.
It brings together design, technology, and cultural care to create something simple but powerful: a typing game that allows children to learn and play in their own language.
At its core, the project develops web-based typing games that:
- Support early literacy in Indigenous and minoritized languages
- Build familiarity with non-dominant scripts and keyboards
- Combine sound, movement, and interaction in culturally meaningful ways
- Create joyful digital environments where language is not reduced to instruction, but lived through play
Why this matters
In dominant digital ecosystems, language learning is often gamified, polished, and widely accessible. Platforms exist for English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, and others. These languages are continuously reinforced through design, investment, and infrastructure.
Indigenous and minoritized languages are rarely afforded the same attention. This is not only a technical gap. It reflects broader inequalities in whose languages are imagined as belonging to the future.
This project works against that assumption.
It insists that these languages are not peripheral. They are not ‘too small’ or ‘too complex’ for digital environments. They belong fully within contemporary technological worlds on screens, in games, in the everyday digital lives of children.
Game structure
Level 1: Letter Recognition
- Individual character typing
- Audio playback upon keypress
- Immediate visual affirmation
- Slow-paced repetition
Goal: Familiarity with script and keyboard mapping.
Level 2: Word Formation
- Short culturally meaningful vocabulary
- Timed typing sequences
- Increased pace
- Score tracking
Goal: Reinforce spelling and fluency.
Level 3: Speed & Challenge Mode
- Randomized vocabulary prompts
- Real-time accuracy tracking
- Performance-based scoring
- Unlockable achievements
Goal: Improve typing speed while strengthening lexical memory.
Community Workshop: Māori Youth Collaboration
Shortly after developing the core mechanics, CoDHerS hosted a half-day collaborative workshop for a group of students from Te Tira Whakaau Kapa Haka from Te Kura Matua o Wainuiomata, Aotearoa (New Zealand), visiting UBC. We collaboratively made a Māori Typing Game. We shared a design flow maps, UX prototypes, game logic structure, and cultural adaptation strategies. Students formed a group and discussed the design decision, ask for cultural knowledge from their teachers, and deeply engaged in the workshop, then divided into four teams and designed language-themed variations.
Students made 4 different themed Typing Games:
- Ocean-Themed Typing Game
Focus: Marine vocabulary and water-based animations
- Space-Themed Typing Game
Focus: Planetary vocabulary and cosmic navigation
- Jungle-Themed Typing Game
Focus: Environmental vocabulary and movement-based progression
- Dance-Stage Cultural Game
Focus: Movement, rhythm, and cultural terminology
Cross-Language Adaptation: Igbo Expansion
In early 2026, CoDHerS Archive Library graduate student Okereke (Igbo language speaker, Nigeria) joined the initiative. Inspired by the Uyghur and Maori prototype, he expressed interest in adapting the platform for his six-year-old daughter.
Through collaborative iteration, the team:
- Reconfigured script logic
- Adjusted phonetic playback
- Modified vocabulary datasets
- Maintained core UX structure
This cross-linguistic scalability affirms the platform’s modular architecture.
A Story of Journey — Sozler Sayahiti
The Uyghur version, tentatively titled Journey of Words (Sozler Sayahiti), represents the first full implementation.
The interactive web-based game platform Sozder Sayahiti was created by a team of four students as a community-driven language revitalization initiative. Developed through a collaborative process, the project began with a shared goal: to create a fun and accessible digital space for learning Uyghur. From the early stages, we designed and presented a working prototype, inviting feedback from the five-year-old Uyghur child whose question first inspired the project.
As we refined the design, we focused on simplicity, accessibility, and cultural relevance, developing interactive typing exercises that strengthen vocabulary, spelling, and familiarity with the Uyghur language. The process itself became collaborative and iterative, shaped by dialogue, testing, and adaptation.
Steppe to Screen Project
Preserving Kazakh Language and Cultural Identity Among Newcomers in BC Through Creative Technology
A language preservation project helping Kazakh newcomers reconnect with their mother tongue through creative technology.
It addresses language loss caused by migration and Russification by offering engaging, hands-on workshops in game design and coding. Participants create digital games that teach the Kazakh language and culture, strengthening identity and intergenerational connection.
Design Principles
Several principles guide the work:
- Joy over extraction —> Learning must be inviting, not imposed
- Children as co-designers —> Their questions shape the project
- Cultural specificity —> Each language carries its own rhythm, visuality, and logic
- Accessibility —> Audio, pacing, and feedback support diverse learners
- Scalability with care> — Expansion across languages without erasing difference
These are not abstract ideals. They are embedded in the design decisions, from interface to interaction.
Invitation & Ongoing Initiative
This work continues to grow.
CoDHerS welcomes collaboration with educators, students, community organizations, designers, and language workers who are interested in adapting this framework for their own contexts.
The question that began this project remains open:
What would it look like for every child to play, learn, and imagine in their own language?
This project is one step toward that future.
Produced by: CoDHerS Lab
Concept & Facilitation: Dr. Aynur Kadir
The project was co-produced collaboratively by:
- Dr. Okerke Wisdom Anyim (Igbo), graduate student and research assistant at CoDHerS
- Sarvenaz Nurly (Uyghur), project coordinator at the CoDHerS
- Berfin Ustabaş (Hemshin), Sai Manas Pandrangi (Indian), and Kamila Maral (Kazakh), research assistants at CoDHerS
Produced on: The traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people