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Introduction
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FirstVoices hosts custom, interactive alphabets with many useful and interesting features. Custom alphabets on FirstVoices provide features such as:
Custom alphabetization and search in your Dictionary for your words and phrases
“Listen to each letter” page for learners and those new to your writing systemMore accurate and flexible search functionalityto hear the sounds of your language
Alphabet-related games, such as Word Search, Parachute, or Wordle
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Parachute and Wordle
Creating your custom alphabet is an important step in setting up a new FirstVoices site, which will ensure that your site dictionary functions properly and is easy for visitors to use.
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In order to set up your alphabet, you will need to create a batch spreadsheet (.csv file) which contains the basic necessary information about your alphabet. This article will help walk you through creating it. The Language Administrator will submit the alphabet information to the FirstVoices team, who are responsible for uploading it to the site.
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It is important to set up your custom alphabet at the beginning of your project, before |
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publicly launching your site, so that |
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visitors do not encounter any errors or issues with functionality |
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Although this page uses the term “Alphabet”, FirstVoices is able to handle any kind of writing system including syllabics! Check out some of our sites that use syllabics: |
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Prepare your language alphabet
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Gather information
Identify and finalize the list of characters/letters in your writing system.
Existing language teaching resources or dictionaries are a great starting place for this. Many already contain existing lists of letters, or you can identify letters based on existing spellings.
If you have already begun uploading words and content to your site, you can examine the letters you are already using.
If there is not a standard writing system for your language, or if there are several possible
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options for how to write, it is a good idea to engage in consultation within your community
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around the appropriate writing system for your language site.
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Identify if you will use lower case letters in your alphabet, or upper case, or both (if applicable)
Some language writing systems use ONLY lower case characters.
Some language writing systems use ONLY upper case characters.
Some language writing systems use both lower and upper case. In this case, you must identify both the lower and upper case versions of your alphabet characters.
Decide on the correct order for your alphabet.
Example: In English, a=1, b=2, c=3...
Identify different ways to type the characters/letters in your writing system. For example, lowercase and uppercase versions, or accented versions.
Some languages' writing systems use only lowercase letters, or only uppercase letters. If your language’s writing system uses both lowercase AND uppercase letters, you will need to identify the correct symbols for both lower and upper case.
Example: <k> = <K>, <kw> = <Kw>Many writing systems use accents. In some languages, the accented letter is treated as a separate letter. In others, the accented letter is treated as just another version of the original letter. If your language’s writing system uses accented letters, you will need to provide the correct symbols either as separate letters or as alternate versions.
Example: <e> = <é>, <a> = <ā> (but not <ą>)
(Optional) Identify how people may commonly type your language’s characters if they are unfamiliar with your writing system.
Examples:
The character < ł > might be equivalent to <
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lh > using Latin characters.
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Instead of < ḵ >, learners may only type < k >.
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If you would like assistance in planning for or engaging in community consultation, please email Kyra at kyra@fpcc.ca |
Record sound files for your alphabet
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the LTP team (ltp@fpcc.ca) or James (james@fpcc.ca). |
Organize your findings
At the end of this process, you should have a list of the characters in your alphabet and some information about each one. For example:
Character | Other versions | Learners might write |
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ʔ | ' | |
a | A à À | |
ą | Ą ą̀ Ą̀ | a |
b | B |
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You can also choose to add extra information at this step. For example, you might wish to list an example word for each letter, or write in some additional notes. You will not submit these as part of the batch spreadsheet, but they may be helpful to your team for following steps. |
Record sample pronunciations for your alphabet (recommended)
FirstVoices language sites allow you to include an audio or video file along with each letter, which can help learners become familiar with the pronunciation. It can be a good learning opportunity to create these recordings while you are setting up the alphabet for the first time.
Decide what information should be included in the recording.
Some communities include only the sound associated with the character (example)
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Other communities choose to include more information such as detail about the character itself, or example words using the sound (example).
You are encouraged to make whatever decision is most suitable for your project and your community's teaching practices.
Make a recording of a speaker producing the character sound and any other information that you decided to include, for each character.
Follow these instructions for managing
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Submit your alphabet
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Important: When you are finished, you will need one audio file for each letter.
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Create the batch spreadsheet
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The language team must collect their alphabet information into a spreadsheet (.csv) and submits the spreadsheet to the FirstVoices team.
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in the correct format for it to be uploaded to FirstVoices.
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Before starting, it may be helpful to review our general instructions for batch uploads here. |
Download submission template
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DO NOT alter the column headers in the template. Take great care to avoid typos. Any errors you make in the content of this spreadsheet will be reflected when the FirstVoices team uploads your alphabet and may interfere with our ability to upload your alphabet entirely. |
View and download our template spreadsheet for alphabet submission here:
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Add basic information to your alphabet spreadsheet
Open the alphabet submission template.
Choose the columns you wish to include. CHAR and ORDER are required – the others are optional. If a column is not applicable to your alphabet, you can leave it blank, 'hide' it, or delete it
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Download the alphabet submission template
Enter the information you gathered
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about your alphabet into the spreadsheet columns.
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Definitions of each column are in the table below.
Column | What goes here? | Example | |
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CHAR | The character in your writing system |
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. If there are multiple versions of this character (e.g. upper and lower case), use the more “basic” one that is used most often. | kw' | Required |
CHAR_VERSIONS | Any alternate variations of the character in your writing system |
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, separated by spaces. If there are no alternate versions of the character (e.g. you only use lower case, no accents, etc), leave this blank. | Kw' | Optional |
APPROXIMATE | The equivalent character in English, approximate characters that are commonly used by learners, or alternate spellings |
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. | qu | Optional |
ORDER | The numerical order in which this character appears (for alphabetical sorting) |
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AUDIO_FILENAME: The exact filename of the corresponding audio file, including the file extension (e.g. alphabet_a.wav)
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AUDIO_SOURCE: The name of the speaker on the recording
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. | 15 | Required |
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Take great care to avoid typos when creating this spreadsheet. Any errors you make in the content of this spreadsheet will be reflected when the FirstVoices team uploads your alphabet and may affect how words are listed on in your site dictionary. |
Save and submit the spreadsheet to FirstVoices staff
Save your spreadsheet in CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (.csv) file format
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. The file name for the spreadsheet should follow our batch upload rules.
Double check the spreadsheet by closing it and opening it again. Do your special characters all look correct?
Send your spreadsheet to FirstVoices as an email attachment to <batch@fpcc.ca>.
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Download submission template
View and download our template spreadsheet for alphabet submission here:
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FirstVoices staff will review your batch, perform the upload, and set up alphabet functionality on your site. Please allow 1-2 weeks for this to be completed.
Add additional information to the online alphabet (such as recordings)
Once your alphabet has been uploaded to FirstVoices, Language Administrators will have access to continue adding more information such as example words, images, or the example pronunciation files you have recorded.
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Read more here about how to manage and customize your language alphabet. |
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Example alphabet spreadsheets
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Check out these helpful sample spreadsheets, demonstrating how to enter a writing system that uses uppercase characters, lowercase characters, or both.
Both upper and lower case | Upper case only | Lower case only | |
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Managing your alphabet from the Dashboard
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Only Language Administrators can edit the site alphabet! Check with your FirstVoices team regarding what role and permissions you have on the site. |
Language Administrators are responsible for the management of the letters of their alphabet. It is recommended that each letter have an attached sound file and sample word. Once an alphabet is uploaded to FirstVoices, its related content can be managed by the Language Administrator from the Dashboard.
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Coming soon! |
Changing your alphabet
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Changing the alphabet (orthography) of a language is a big technical decision, but also a strategic one. Make sure you consult with the FirstVoices team prior to committing to this move so that you can understand the implications this move has. |
Option A: Spreadsheet with spelling patterns (Recommended)
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The FirstVoices development team will run a script to convert entries with the old spelling/alphabet to use the new spelling/alphabet. The development team will move previous spellings to an “alternative spelling” field, so that the Language Team can look at it when editing/checking entries.
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The FirstVoices development team will upload the new alphabet.
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Language team members will check entries for errors by going through the word and phrase list view on FirstVoices.
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PROS
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CONS
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ROUGH TIME ESTIMATE
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Less manual editing than Option B
The public won't lose access
"Old" spelling can remain published on the language site until the new spellings are checked and verified
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The automation will likely result in some "spelling" errors and will need to be reviewed
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Dev Team: 40 hours (Allow ~3 weeks)
Language Team: 45 hours
Option B: Change Alphabet First
The FirstVoices development team will unpublish all entries (i.e. change to "Team Only").
The FirstVoices development team will upload the new alphabet.
Your language team will manually change each word over to the new alphabet and publish as each word is ready.
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PROS
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CONS
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ROUGH TIME ESTIMATE
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Language team can get started quickly
Editing the existing database means you can use existing audio files
You can fix any pre-existing errors along the way
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The public will only be able to access the entries as they are published (i.e. lose access to the existing entries)
Lots of manual editing for the language team
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Dev Team: 16 hours (Allow a week)
Language Team: 220 hours
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The FirstVoices development team will provide a spreadsheet template.
Language team members will map the existing entries to entries using the new alphabet (words, phrases, and audio titles).
The FirstVoices development team will run a script to edit words, phrases, and audio titles.
The FirstVoices development team will upload the new alphabet.
Language team members will check entries for errors by going through the word and phrase list view on FirstVoices.
Language team will manually update story and song entries to use the new alphabet.
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PROS
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CONS
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ROUGH TIME ESTIMATE
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Less manual editing than Option B
Less chance of errors than Option A
The public won't lose access
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The automation will likely result in some errors and will need to be reviewed
More manual input (typing) than Option B
Errors would be visible in the database until fixed
Dev Team: 40 hours (Allow ~3 weeks)
Language Team: 150 hours
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