Blackfoot language

Blackfoot (Nitsitapi)
Siksiká (ᓱᖽᐧᖿ)
Native to	Canada, United States
Region	Piikani, Siksika, and Kainai Reserves in southern Alberta; Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana
Ethnicity	15,000 Blackfoot (1977)
Native speakers	3,400 (2011 Canadian census)
Language family	Algic Algonquian Blackfoot (Nitsitapi)
Writing system	Blackfoot Syllabics Sometimes Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-2	bla
ISO 639-3	bla
Glottolog	siks1238
ELP	Niitsipowahsin

The Blackfoot language, also called Siksiká' (ᓱᖽᐧᖿ, its denomination in ISO 639-3), (English: /siːkˈsiːkʌ/; Siksiká [siksiká], syllabics ᓱᖽᐧᖿ), often anglicised as [Siksika] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: bl (help), is an Algonquian language spoken by the Niitsitapi people, who currently live in the northwestern plains of North America. There are four dialects, 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, Alberta; Kainai (Blood, Many Chiefs), spoken in Alberta between Cardston and Lethbridge; Aapátohsipikani (Northern Piegan), to the west of Fort MacLeod; and Aamsskáápipikani (Southern Piegan), in northwestern Montana. The name Blackfoot probably comes from the blackened soles of the leather shoes that the people wore.

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. Among the Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is relatively divergent in phonology and lexicon. The language has a fairly small phoneme inventory; consisting of 11 basic consonants and three basic vowels that have contrastive length counterparts. Blackfoot is a pitch accent language. Blackfoot language has been declining in the number of native speakers and is classified as either a threatened or endangered language.

Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is considered to be a polysynthetic language due to its large morpheme inventory and word internal complexity. A majority of Blackfoot morphemes have a one to one correspondence between form and meaning, a defining feature of agglutinative languages. However, Blackfoot does display some fusional characteristics as there are morphemes that are polysemous. Both noun and verb stems cannot be used bare but must be inflected. Due to its morphological complexity Blackfoot has a flexible word order.

Classification

Blackfoot is a member of the Algonquian language belonging to the Plains branch along with Arapaho, Gros Ventre, and Cheyenne. Blackfoot is spoken in Northwestern Montana and throughout Alberta, Canada, making it geographically one of the westernmost Algonquian languages.

History

Once, the Blackfoot people were one of a few Native American nations that inhabited the Great Plains west of the Mississippi river. The people were buffalo hunters with settlements in the northern United States. Forced to move because of wars with neighboring tribes, the Blackfoot people settled all around the plains area and up into Canada, eventually concentrating in Montana. Blackfoot hunters would track and hunt game while the remaining people would gather food and other necessities for the winter. The northern plains, where the Blackfoot settled, had incredibly harsh winters, and the flat land provided little escape from the winds. The Blackfoot Nation thrived, along with many other native groups, until the European settlers arrived in the late eighteenth century. The settlers brought with them horses and technology but also disease and weapons. Diseases like smallpox, foreign to the natives, decimated the Blackfoot population in the mid-nineteenth century. Groups of Blackfoot people rebelled against the Europeans like Mountain Chief’s tribe. But, in 1870, a tribe of peaceful Blackfoot were mistaken for the rebellious tribe and hundreds were slaughtered. Over the next thirty years, the settlers had eradicated the buffalo from the Great Plains. This took away the main element of Blackfoot life and took away the people’s ability to be self-sustaining. With their main food source gone, the Blackfoot were forced to rely on government support.

Phonology

Consonants

Blackfoot has eighteen consonants, of which all but /ʔ/, /x/, /j/ and /w/ form pairs distinguished by length.

	Labial		Coronal		Dorsal		Glottal
Nasal	m	mː	n	nː
Plosive	p	pː	t	tː	k	kː	ʔ
Affricate			t͡s	t͡sː
Fricative			s	sː	x
Approximant	w				j

Vowels

Monophthongs

Blackfoot has a vowel system with three monophthongs, /i o a/.

	Front		Central		Back
High	i	iː			o	oː
Low			a	aː

The short monophthongs exhibit allophonic changes as well. The vowels /a/ and /o/ are raised to [ʌ] and [ʊ] respectively when followed by a long consonant. The vowel /i/ becomes [ɪ] in closed syllables.

Diphthongs

There are three additional diphthongs in Blackfoot. The first diphthong ai is pronounced [ɛ] before a long consonant, [ei] (or [ai], in the dialect of the Blackfoot Reserve) before /i/ or /ʔ/, and elsewhere is pronounced [æ] in the Blood Reserve dialect or [ei] in the Blackfoot Reserve dialect. The second diphthong ao is pronounced [au] before /ʔ/ and [ɔ] elsewhere. The third diphthong oi may be pronounced [y] before a long consonant and as /oi/ elsewhere .

Length

Length is contrastive in Blackfoot for both vowels and consonants. Vowel length refers to the duration of a vowel and not a change in quality. The vowel /oo/ is therefore the same sound as /o/ only differing in the length of time over which it is produced.

áakokaawa			'he will rope'
áakookaawa			'she will sponsor a Sundance.'

Consonants can also be lengthened with the exception of /ʔ/, /x/, /j/ and /w/.

kiipíppo			'one hundred'
nínna			'my father'
soká'pssiwa			'he is good'

Pitch Accent

Blackfoot is a pitch accent language and it is a contrastive feature in the language. Every word will have at least one high pitched vowel or diphthong but may have more than one. Note that high pitch here is used relative to the contiguous syllables. Blackfoot utterances experience a gradual drop in pitch therefore if an utterance contains a set of accented vowels the first will be higher in pitch than the second but the second will be higher in pitch than the syllables directly surrounding it. Pitch is illustrated in the Latin-based orthography with an acute accent.

ápssiwa			'it's an arrow'
apssíwa			'it's a fig'
máátaissikópiiwa			'He's not resting.'

Phonological Rules

Blackfoot is rich with morpho-phonological changes. Below is a limited sample of phonological rules.

Semi-vowel Loss

Glides are deleted after another consonant, except a glottal stop, or word initially but kept in other conditions.

	/w/ loss
poos-wa	→	póósa
cat-AN.SG		'cat'
	/y/ loss
óóhkotok-yi	→	óóhkotoki
stone-IN.SG		'stone'
	word initial
w-óko'si	→	óko'si
3.SG.POSS-child		'his child'

Accent Spread

Accent will spread from an accented vowel to the following vowel across morpheme boundaries.

á-okska'siwa	→	áókska'siwa			'She runs'
atsikí-istsi	→	atsikíístsi			'shoes'

Vowel devoicing

At the end of a word, non-high pitched vowels are devoiced, regardless of length.

Grammar - General

Lexical Categories

Lexical categories in Blackfoot are a matter of debate in the literature, with the exception of nouns and verbs. Additional proposed categories, proposed by Uhlenbeck, are adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, and particles. Taylor classifies the Blackfoot language as having two major classes, substantives (nouns and pronouns) and verbs, with one minor class consisting of particles. Frantz classifies adjectives and adverbs as affixes but not independent classes.

Agreement

Agreement morphology is extensive in Blackfoot and agreement morphemes are often polysemous, i.e. animacy and number (nouns) or person and number (verbs) are indicated within the same affix.

Animacy

All nouns are required to be inflected for animacy and are classified as either animate or inanimate. Verbs are inflected to match the animacy of its arguments. Animacy in Blackfoot is a grammatical construct for noun classification. Therefore, some semantically inherently inanimate objects, such as drums and knives are grammatically animate.

Verbs are marked with a transitivity marker which must agree with the animacy of its arguments. Even in stories in which a grammatically inanimate object are markedly anthropomorphized, such as talking flowers, speakers will not use animate agreement markers with them.

Number

All nouns are required to be inflected as either singular or plural. Verbal inflection matches the plurality of its arguments.

Person Marking

Blackfoot has five grammatical persons — first, second, third (proximate), fourth (obviative), and fifth (sub-obviative).

Word Order

Word order is flexible in Blackfoot. Subjects are not required to precede the verb. Independent noun phrases may be included but these are typically dropped in Blackfoot due to the extensive person inflection on the verb they aren't necessary to interpret the meaning of the utterance. However, if first or second person pronouns are present it yields an emphatic reading. There is an ordering restriction if the Distinct Third Person (DTP) attached pronoun /-aawa/ is used in which the subject independent noun phrase must occur before the verb. If the independent noun phrase occurs after the verb then the DTP may not be used.

Subjecthood

Blackfoot nouns must be grammatically particular in order to be a subject of a verb. In transitive constructions the subject must be volitional to be interpreted as subject.

Person Hierarchy

It has been asserted that Blackfoot, along with other Algonquian languages violates the Universal Person Hierarchy in verb complexes by ranking second person over first person. The hierarchy has traditionally been published as 2nd person > 1st person > 3rd person (proximate) > 4th person (obviative). However, alternative analyses of Blackfoot person hierarchy has been published that suggest the Universal Person Hierarchy is applicable to Blackfoot.

Verbal structure

The Blackfoot verbal template contains a stem with several prefixes and suffixes. The structure of the verb stem in Blackfoot can be roughly broken down into the pre-verb, the root, the medial, and the final. The root and final are required elements.

Generally, information encoded in the pre-verb can include adverbs, most pronouns, locatives, manners, aspect, mood, and tense. Incorporated objects appear in the medial. The final includes transitivity and animacy markers, and valency markers.

Grammar - Nouns

Agreement Morphology

Noun classes are split based on grammatical gender into two categories: animate and inanimate. Additionally, all nouns must be marked for plurality. Plurality agreement are suffixes that attach to noun stems and take four forms, as shown in the table below.

Inanimate			Animate
Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
-yi	-istsi		-wa	-iksi

í'ksisako (inanimate stem)					'meat'
í'ksisako-yi	→	í'ksisakoyi			'meat'
í'ksisako-istsi	→	í'ksisakoistsi			''meats'

Proximate & Obviative

When a sentence contains two or more particular animate gender nouns as arguments proximate (major third person/3rd) and obviative (minor third person/4th) markings are used to disambiguate. There may only be one proximate argument in any given sentence but multiple obviates are permissible. Proximate arguments are more prominent in discourse. Redirectional markers, referred to as inverse and direct theme in the literature, can be applied to indicate that the fourth person is the subject argument.

Particularity/Referentiality

Blackfoot nouns must be grammatically particular, according to Frantz (2009), in order to be a subject of a verb. To be the subject of any verb in Blackfoot the noun must point to a specific referent in the world. In transitive constructions the subject must also be volitional to be interpreted as subject. If subject of a transitive verb is non-specific or non-volitional then verb must be inflected as having an unspecified subject.

Oma	isttoána	iihtsíkahksinii'pi	annistsi	ikkstsíksiistsi.
om-wa	isttoan-wa	iiht-íkahksinii-'p-yi	ann-istsi	ikkstsíksi-istsi
that-AN.PL	knife-AN.PL	means-cut.off-UNSPEC.SUB-IN.PL	that-IN.PL	branch-IN.PL
`The knife cut off those branches.'
`By means of the knife, the branches were cut off.'

Grammar - Verbs

Verbal Morphology Template

There are four verb categories in Blackfoot: intransitive inanimate, intransitive animate, transitive inanimate, and transitive animate. The parameters of transitivity and animacy for verb selection are typically referred to as stem agreement in order to delineate it from person agreement. The animacy for intransitive verbs is determined by the subject of the verb whereas the transitive verbs are defined by the animacy of their primary object. 

The only required component of a clause in Blackfoot is the verb, referred to as a verbal complex in the Algonquian literature, that must be appropriately inflected according to the standard template:

preverb-root-medial-final

Preverbs are prefixes that include pronominal, modal, temporal, aspectual and modifying prefixes. Suffixes are either medials, which primarily encode manner, or finals, which encode transitivity and animacy. Roots and finals are always required in a verbal complex whereas preverb and medials are not.

The Blackfoot verbal template contains a stem with several prefixes and suffixes. The structure of the verb stem in Blackfoot can be roughly broken down into the pre-verb, the root, the medial, and the final. The root and final are required elements.

Generally, information encoded in the pre-verb can include adverbs, most pronouns, locatives, manners, aspect, mood, and tense. Incorporated objects appear in the medial. The final includes transitivity and animacy markers, and valency markers.

Inverse and Direct Theme

When there are two animate arguments acting in a transitive animate verb stem one of the arguments must be acting on the other. Which argument is the actor (subject) and which is the acted upon (object) is indicated by the use of direct or inverse theme marking. If an subject argument is higher than the object argument on the person hierarchy then the direct suffix is used. Conversely, when a object outranks the sentences subject then the inverse suffix is used.

Direct
Nitsikákomimmayi	nitániksi.
nit-ikákomimm-aa-yi	ni-táni-iksi
1.SG-love-DIR-3.PL	1.POSS-daughter-AN.PL
'I love my daughters.'

Inverse
Nitsikákomimmoki	nitániksi.
nit-ikákomimm-ok-yi	ni-táni-iksi
1.SG-love-INV-3.PL	1.POSS-daughter-AN.PL
'My daughters love me.'

   

Voice and Valency

Blackfoot voice alterations occur as suffixes on the verb and fall into the category of finals. Finals can include causative, benefactive, reciprocal, and reflexive affixes that either decrease or increase the valency of the stem they are attached too. Below is an example of the reflexive final suffix. It can only be added to a transitive animate stem and results in an animate intranstive stem. This is then interpreted as being a reflexive verb, where the subject of the AI stem is understood to be the both the underlying subject and object of the original verb stem. 

oma	imitááwa	siiksípohsiwa
om-wa	imitáá-wa	siiksip-o:hsi-wa
that-AN.SG	dog-AN.SG	PST:bite(TA)-RFLX(AI)-3.SG
‘That dog bit itself.’

Relative clauses

Relative clauses are rare in Blackfoot but they do occur. In order to embed a clause you first need to nominalize the clause. The reclassification strategy for nominalization is displayed here followed by a relative clause that uses a nominal formed by this strategy. Reclassification is done by adding nominal inflection to the verb stem instead of person inflection. This derived form then refers to the underlying subject and agrees in both number and animacy.  

omiksi	áyo'kaiksi/
om-iksi	á-yo'kaa-iksi
that-AN.PL	DUR-sleep-AN.PL
'those sleeping ones'

Examples below show how a reclassifation nominalized clause is used in a relative clause. Note the nominal agreement morphology on the verb matches the subject, singular and plural, respectively.

oma	nínaawa	áyo'kaawa	nóoma.
om-wa	ninaa-wa	á-yo'kaa-wa	n-oom-wa
that-AN.SG	man-AN.SG	DUR-sleep-AN.SG	1.POSS-husband-AN.SG
'That man who is sleeping is my husband.'

Omiksi	aakííkoaiksi	áínihkiiksi	áyaakahkayiyaawa.
om-iks	aakííkoaN-iksi	á-Inihki-iksi	áyaak-wa:hkayi-yi-aawa
that-AN.PL	girl-AN.PL	DUR-sing-AN.PL	FUT-go.home-3.PL-PRO
`Those girls who are singing are on their way home.'

Writing system

A syllabics script, ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ pikoni kayna siksika, was created by Anglican missionary John William Tims around 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. The Latin orientation of the letters is used for the e series, after the names of the Latin letters, pe, te, etc.

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 from 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	medial
(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	ᐧ
y-	ᔦ	ᔨ	ᔪ	ᔭ	ᐟ	ᑉ
w-	ᖷ	ᖴ	ᖵ	ᖶ	ᐠ	ᙾ

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

⟨᙮⟩ is used for a period.

Also sometimes it is written in Latin letters but with different spelling on computers because not all computers support the letters used in the Blackfoot language.

Revitalization efforts

In the late 1900s, many tribes began a surge of revitalization efforts to encourage cultural awareness of indigenous customs and traditions. Of these, the Blackfoot revitalization effort has proven to be quite successful, producing various institutions, including a college dedicated to preserving and promoting Blackfoot traditions. Today, there are head-start programs in primary and secondary schools on the reservation to teach even infants and toddlers about the history of the tribe from an early age. In 1987, Dorothy “Still Smoking” and Darrell Robes Kipp founded the Piegan Institute, a non-profit foundation in Montana dedicated to researching, promoting, and preserving the Blackfoot language. Today, the Piegan institute is a nationally recognized K-8 private language school and a leading research center for indigenous languages. Another, Nizipuhwahsin School (founded in 1995) is a Blackfoot-Language Only elementary school. However, the most significant demonstration of the tribe’s success in education is seen in the Blackfoot Community College, founded in 1974.

Blackfoot Community College (BCC) is a two-year, nationally accredited college that was made possible by the Indian Education Act of 1972 and the 1964 Act enacted by the Office of Economic Opportunity. BCC is a member of both the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). It allows teenagers and adults alike to take classes in a wide range of subjects, from classes in Psychology and Digital Photography to classes on Blackfoot language and tradition. They have beginning Blackfoot language classes with labs for members and non-members of the community to learn the language.

The Cuts Wood Academy in Browning, Montana, founded by Darrell Kipp and the Piegan Institute, offers language immersion instruction in Blackfoot.

Radio programming in Blackfoot

Radio station KBWG in Browning, Montana, broadcasts a one-hour show for Blackfoot language learners four times a week. The Voice of Browning, Thunder Radio, FM 107.5, or "Ksistsikam ayikinaan" (literally "voice from nowhere") went live in 2010, and focuses on positive programming. In 2011, John Davis, a 21-year-old Blackfeet Community College student explained "I was the first Blackfeet to ever talk on this radio", Davis said. "This is my coup story." A story in the Great Falls Tribune noted, "When the station was replaying programming that originated elsewhere, the radio was all "tear in my beer" and "your cheatin' heart." They called it the suicide station for its depressing old country themes ..." The station's offerings have now expanded beyond country to include AC/DC and Marvin Gaye, and "on-the-air jokes they would never hear on a Clear Channel radio station, such as: "The captain is as cool as commodity cheese."

“So far we have broadcasting Monday through Friday from around 6:30, Indian time”, quipped station manager Lona Burns, “to around 11, Indian time.” ... “It’s Indian radio”, agreed Running Crane. “Where else can you hear today’s hits with traditional music?”

Canadian government support

The Canadian government has provided support for the languages through funds and other financial resources. According to James Moore, the former Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, “the Government of Canada is committed to the revitalization and preservation of Aboriginal languages.” The funding was put to use in the form of digital libraries containing interviews with native speakers, online courses, and various other resources in the hopes of promoting Blackfoot language and passing it down to subsequent generations. On top of both of these government efforts, the Canadian Government has also provided over $40,000 through the Aboriginal Languages Initiative Fund to promote the use of Aboriginal languages in community and family settings.

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

• Baldwin, S. J. (1994). "Blackfoot Neologisms". International Journal of American Linguistics. 60 (1): 69–72. JSTOR 1265481.
• Berman, H. (2006, April 1). Studies in Blackfoot Prehistory. Retrieved February 12, 2016,
• Bortolin, Leah and Sean McLennan. A Phonetic Analysis of Blackfoot. MS, University of Calgary, 1995.
• Denzer-King, R. (n.d.). Google Books. Retrieved February 12, 2016
• Derrick, D. (n.d.). Syllabification and Blackfoot. Retrieved February 10, 2016, from http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~donaldd/publications/proceedings_NWLC22_donald_der rick.pdf
• 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
• Gick, B.; Bliss, H.; Michelson, K.; Radanov, B. "Articulation without acoustics: "Soundless" vowels in Oneida and Blackfoot". Journal of Phonetics. 40: 46–53. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2011.09.002.
• Geers, Gerardus Johannes, "The Adverbial and Prepositional Prefixes in Blackfoot", dissertation. Leiden, 1921
• Hanks (1954). "A Psychological Exploration in the Blackfoot Language". International Journal of American Linguistics. 20 (3): 195–205. doi:10.1086/464277. JSTOR 1263343.
• Kipp, Darrell, Joe Fisher (Director) (1991). Transitions: Destruction of a Mother Tongue. Native Voices Public Television Workshop. Retrieved 2012-12-03.
• Miyashita, M.. (2011). Five Blackfoot Lullabies. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 155(3), 276–293. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23208685
• 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 Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde. Nieuwe Reeks, Deel XLI) ISBN 0-404-15976-1
• 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)
• Uhlenbeck-Melchior, Wilhelmina Maria. Montana 1911 : a professor and his wife among the Blackfeet : Wilhelmina Maria Uhlenbeck-Melchior's diary and C. C. Uhlenbeck's original Blackfoot texts and a new series of Blackfoot texts (2005 ed.). Calgary: University of Calgary Press. ISBN 9780803218284.
• Uhlenbeck, Christianus Cornelius. 1912. A new series of Blackfoot texts: from the southern Peigans Blackfoot Reservation Teton County Montana. (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, N.R. 13.1.) Amsterdam: Müller. x+264pp. Retrieved from http://glottolog.org/resource/reference/id/127554
• Uhlenbeck, Christianus Cornelius. 1938. A Concise Blackfoot Grammar. Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers-Maatschappij. Retrieved from http://glottolog.org/resource/reference/id/100587

External links

• Piegan Institute
• Blackfoot Language Group, University of Montana
• Don Frantz's page on the Blackfoot language
• Blackfoot - English Dictionary: from *Webster's Online Dictionary - The Rosetta Edition.
• Blackfeet Language at Saokio Heritage
• Blackfoot Digital Library.org
• Tribal immersion schools rescue language and culture
• Teacher on use of Nintendo for Siksika instruction
• OLAC resources in and about the Siksika language
• Stocken, Harry W.G.: First ten chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel = ᖳᐦᓱᒧᐧᖹᖽᐧᖹ ᒉᒧᔭ ᖲᐨᓱᖻᐟᑊᑯ (Akhsitsiniksini Matiyo otsinaihpi). Toronto?, 1888 (Peel 1755)
• http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/profile/15784/contributions