SFU Multilingual Week Keynote Event

Join us for a colloquium by Kyra Borland about her experiences working in Indigenous Language Revitalization (ILR). This talk is the keynote event for SFU Multilingual Week 2026, a university-wide celebration that showcases the rich diversity of languages spoken within our community.

Kyra Borland’s insights come from years of dedication to the field of Indigenous Language Revitalization, both in her research efforts as well as outside academia. This talk will focus on her non-academic work, and the full abstract will be published here shortly. 

Title

Many worlds: Experiences working in Indigenous language revitalization outside academia

About the speaker

Kyra Borland is a linguist of mixed Irish and Métis heritage. Her ancestors come from Belfast, Northern Saskatchewan, and the Red River. Her Métis family names are Shirtliffe, Welsh, Hogue, and Taylor. Kyra trained as a linguist at UBC and UVic, working primarily with Gitksan communities and speakers, to whom she credits her early passion for community-based language work. Her academic focus is in acoustic phonetics, vowel variation, and dialectology. Her career has focused on training, program development, language plan implementation, and funding distribution for Indigenous Language Revitalization across British Columbia. Kyra is passionate about sharing these experiences and inspiring others to pursue fulfilling careers in ILR. 

About SFU Multilingual Week 2026

Multilingual Week (MLW) is SFU’s annual global connection on campus. All events are free and open to the public, and take place during the week of February 23rd – 28th, 2026. The goal and purpose of Multilingual Week is to embrace diversity, break barriers, and build connections. 

MLW is your opportunity to meet new people with whom you may share language and cultural connections, to hear from different language speakers and language experts, and to find out how language knowledge sets you up for success in your life and career. 

The theme for MLW 2026 is Our stories, our languages.