Blackfoot language

Blackfoot
Siksiká (ᓱᖽᐧᖿ)
Native to	United States, Canada
Region	Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana and Piikani, Siksika, and Kainai Reserves in southern Alberta
Native speakers	5,100 / 5,000 to <8,000
Language family	Algic Algonquian Plains Algonquian Blackfoot
Language codes
ISO 639-2	bla
ISO 639-3	bla
ELP	Niitsipowahsin

Blackfoot also known as Siksika (so called in ISO 639-3), Pikanii, and Blackfeet, is the name of any of the Algonquian languages spoken by the Blackfoot tribes of Native Americans, who currently live in the northwestern plains of North America. There are four dialects of Blackfoot, three of which are spoken in Alberta, Canada and one of which is spoken in the United States: Siksiká (Blackfoot), to the southeast of Calgary, AB; Kainai (Blood), spoken in Alberta between Cardston and Lethbridge; Aapátohsipikani (Northern Peigan), to the west of Fort MacLeod; and Aamsskáápipikani (Southern Peigan), in northwestern Montana..

There is a distinct difference between Old Blackfoot (also called High Blackfoot), the dialect spoken by many older speakers; and New Blackfoot (also called Modern Blackfoot), the dialect spoken by younger speakers. Like the other Plains Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is often said to have diverged a great deal from Proto-Algonquian. It is significantly different both phonologically and, especially, lexically from the other languages within the family.

Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is typologically polysynthetic. Benjamin Whorf hypothesized that Blackfoot is oligosynthetic, but later linguists have rejected this theory.

Sounds

Consonants

Blackfoot has ten consonants, of which all but /ʔ/ and /x/ can be phonemically long:

	Labial		Alveolar		Velar		Glottal
Stop	p	pː	t	tː	k	kː	ʔ
Fricative			s	sː	x
Affricate			t͡s	t͡sː
Nasal	m	mː	n	nː
Semivowel	w		j

The velar consonants become palatals [ç] and [c] when preceded by front vowels.

Vowels

Blackfoot has a vowel system with three monophthongs, /i o a/. Length is distinctive (áakokaawa, "s/he will rope" vs. áakookaawa, "s/he will sponsor a sundance"):

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i	iː
Close-Mid					o	oː
Open			a	aː

There are three additional vowels, called "diphthongs" in Frantz (1997). The first is pronounced [ɛ] before a long consonant, [ei] (or [ai], in the dialect of the Blackfoot Reserve) before /i/ or /ʔ/, and [æ] elsewhere (in the Blood Reserve dialect; [ei] in the Blackfoot Reserve dialect). The second is pronounced [au] before /ʔ/ and [ɔ] elsewhere. The third is /oi/. The short monophthongs exhibit allophonic changes as well. /a/ and /o/ are raised to [ʌ] and [ʊ] respectively when followed by a long consonant, /i/ becomes [ɪ] in closed syllables.

Blackfoot has a pitch accent system, meaning that every word has at least one high-pitched vowel, and high pitch is contrastive with non-high pitch (e.g., ápssiwa, "it's an arrow" vs. apssíwa, "it's a fig"). At the end of a word, non-high pitched vowels are devoiced.

Writing system

A syllabics script, ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ pikoni kayna siksika, was created by John William Tims ca 1888. Although conceptually nearly identical to Western Cree syllabics, the letter forms are innovative. Two series (s, y) were taken from Cree but given different vowel values; three more (p, t, m) were changed in consonant values as well, according to the Latin letter they resembled, and the others (k, n, w) were created from asymmetrical parts of Latin and Greek letters, or in the case of the zero consonant, possibly from the musical notation for quarter note.

Blackfoot	Latin source
ᑭ pe	P
ᒥ te	T
ᖼ ke	K
ᒋ me	m
ᖸ ne	N
ᖴ we	digamma Ϝ

The direction for each vowel is different than in Cree, reflecting Latin alphabetic order. The e orientation is used for the diphthong /ai/. Symbols for consonants are taken from the consonant symbol minus the stem, except for diphthongs (Ca plus ᐠ for /Cau/, and Ca plus ᐟ for /Coi/, though there are also cases of writing subphonemic [ai, ei, eu] with these finals).

C	-a	-e	-i	-o	final
(none)	ᖳ	ᖰ	ᖱ	ᖲ
p-	ᑫ	ᑭ	ᑯ	ᑲ	ᐤ
t-	ᒣ	ᒥ	ᒧ	ᒪ	ᐨ
k-	ᖿ	ᖼ	ᖽ	ᖾ	ᘁ
m-	ᒉ	ᒋ	ᒍ	ᒐ	ᐢ
n-	ᖻ	ᖸ	ᖹ	ᖺ	ᐡ
s-	ᓭ	ᓯ	ᓱ	ᓴ	ᔈ
y-	ᔦ	ᔨ	ᔪ	ᔭ	ᐟ
w-	ᖷ	ᖴ	ᖵ	ᖶ	ᐠ

There are additional finals: allophones ᑊ [h] and ᐦ [x], and three medials: ᖿᐧ /ksa/, ᒣᐧ /tsa/, ᖿᑉ /kya/, ᖿ= /kwa/.

᙮ is used for a period.

External links

• Ethnologue report for Blackfoot
• Blackfoot language
• Don Frantz's page on the Blackfoot language
• Blackfoot - English Dictionary: from Webster's Online Dictionary, the Rosetta Edition.

References

• Frantz, Donald G. (1997) [1991]. Blackfoot Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-7978-4.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29875-X.

Bibliography

• Bortolin, Leah and Sean McLennan. A Phonetic Analysis of Blackfoot. MS, University of Calgary, 1995.
• Frantz, Donald G. and Norma Jean Russell. Blackfoot Dictionary of Stems, Roots, and Affixes. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8020-2691-5 (Second edition published 1995, ISBN 0-8020-0767-8)
• Frantz, Donald G. Blackfoot Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8020-5964-3
• Uhlenbeck, C.C. A Concise Blackfoot Grammar Based on Material From the Southern Peigans. New York: AMS, 1978. (Originally published 1938 by Hollandsche Uitgevers-Maatschappij, Amsterdam, in series Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Adademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde. Nieuwe reeks, deel XLI) ISBN 0-404-1597-1
• Uhlenbeck, C.C. An English-Blackfoot Vocabulary. New York: AMS, 1979. (Originally published 1930 in series: Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Letterkunde, nieuwe reeks, deel 29, No. 4) ISBN 0-404-15796-3
• Uhlenbeck, C.C. and R.H. van Gulik. A Blackfoot-English Vocabulary Based on Material from the Southern Peigans. Amsterdam: Uitgave van de N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers-Jaatschapp-ij, 1934. (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie Van WetenSchappen te Amsterdam. Afdeeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks. Deel XXXIII, No. 2)
• Gerardus Johannes Geers, "The adverbial and prepositional prefixes in Blackfoot", dissertation. Leiden. 1921