Keegan Livermore types out “Good afternoon” on the Ichishkíin-English keyboard he created. The app is available on the Google Play store for Android users only at this time. He hopes to have an iOS version later this fall. CREDIT: ESMY JIMENEZ/NWPB

Android App Reconnects Community To Yakama Indigenous Language

By Esmy Jimenez September 3, 2018

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Keegan Livermore types out “Good afternoon” on the app he created. It’s an Ichishkíin [EE-cheesh-KEEN] and English keyboard.

One of the 10 dialects of the Yakama Nation’s Sahaptin language is called Ichishkíin.

With fewer than 50 fluent speakers, it’s considered endangered according to the Heritage University Language Center. But a new Android mobile app connects users to it.

The dialect doesn’t really use hi or hello. Rather greetings functions on a time base with phrases like “Good morning” or “Good night.”

Livermore is a masters student at Heritage University in Toppenish, Wash. Originally from Portland, his family history brought him back to study linguistics in the Yakima Valley.

During a language program this summer, Livermore suddenly had an idea.

“We have a computer keyboard that someone has already made,” he said. “Why not put it in the tiny computers we all carry in our pockets daily?”

So he set off to create an app that would allow users to type in English and Ichishkíin. He wants to make the language accessible. He says he imagines people using it intexting, Facebook posts and for email. Livermore says he wants “to show that the language is still relevant in our modern, daily context.”