It’s said that one language dies every day and that roughly 6,000 others are at risk of going silent around the world.
But a Victoria company is determined to bring these fading languages back to the forefront and prevent the loss of their culture and history.
Language Foundry, formerly known as the Cultural Foundry Studio, is an education technology company with the mission of supporting the revitalization of endangered and at-risk languages worldwide.
The startup’s e-learning platform addresses this “urgent cultural challenge” by providing communities with the tools to support language learning and revitalization in culturally grounded and accessible ways, explained CEO Chad Quinn.
“We have a number of processes that we’ve developed to enable elders and speakers to record their languages,” he said. “And then, we use that to build a language model so that it can speak the language.”
Once the linguistic platform is created, communities retain ownership over the content and data, ensuring cultural safety, sovereignty and long-term stewardship.
“Everything is owned by the community because we find that it’s incredibly important for us to make sure that the communities retain ownership of the data,” said Quinn.
Working under the invitation of Indigenous communities across Canada and the United States, Language Foundry creates gamified courses that take learners from beginning concepts to basic fluency.
Each course is created to reflect the unique cultural identity of its language, from the artwork to syllabic keyboards.
“(Students) can see, hear and play with the language as they go and learn more,” he said. “We tried very hard to make it a comforting and warm experience.”
With their language platform launched in 2023, Quinn described the response as “amazing.” The platform now offers 14 languages and has over 10,000 students across Canada and the U.S.
“It definitely gets you up in the morning,” he said. “It makes you really want to do the hard work of getting this rolling.
“When we first started showing it, the emotions were pretty raw in terms of what we’ve heard.”
Earlier this November, the company was selected as one of four Canadian startups to participate in the 2025 Web Summit held in Lisbon.
Humbled to have been part of this opportunity to connect with investors, fellow entrepreneurs and like-minded professionals, Quinn now wishes to export his services worldwide.
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