Blackfoot language

Blackfoot (also known as Siksika [ISO 639-3], Pikanii, Blackfeet) is the name of any of the Algonquian languages spoken by the Blackfoot tribe of Native Americans, who currently live in the northwestern plains of North America. 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 in the family.

Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is typologically polysynthetic. Whorf hypothesized that it was oligosynthetic, but mainstream linguists have rejected this.

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
Nasal	m	mː	n	nː
Semivowel	w		j

Blackfoot also has two affricates, /t͡s/, /t͡sː/. The velar consonants become palatals [ç] and [c] when preceded by front vowels.

Vowels

Blackfoot has a vowel system with three monophthongs, . 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 script for Blackfoot was created by John William Tims in the 19th century. The script uses a symbol for each consonant+vowel combination. There is only one symbol for each consonant, but it is rotated to face different directions to indicate the vowel which goes with it. The consonant symbols appear to be loosely based on the Latin alphabet, only made less symmetrical. Symbols for consonants without any vowels are based on the consonant symbol minus the stem.

Unicode table for Blackfoot

Syllabics	Unicode	Blackfoot
=	003D	-w-
ᐟ	141F	+i
ᐠ	1420	+u(o)
ᐡ	1421	N
ᐢ	1422	M
ᐤ	1424	P
ᐦ	1426	KH
ᐧ	1427	-s-
ᐨ	1428	T
ᑉ	1449	-y-
ᑊ	144A	H
ᑫ	146B	Pa
ᑭ	146D	Pe
ᑯ	146F	Pi
ᑲ	1472	Po
ᒉ	1489	Ma
ᒋ	148B	Me
ᒍ	148D	Mi
ᒐ	1490	Mo
ᒣ	14A3	Ta
ᒥ	14A5	Te
ᒧ	14A7	Ti
ᒪ	14AA	To
ᓭ	14ED	Sa
ᓯ	14EF	Se
ᓱ	14F1	Si
ᓴ	14F4	So
ᔈ	1508	S
ᔦ	1526	Ya
ᔨ	1528	Ye
ᔪ	152A	Yi
ᔭ	152D	Yo
ᖰ	15B0	E
ᖱ	15B1	I
ᖲ	15B2	O
ᖳ	15B3	A
ᖴ	15B4	We
ᖵ	15B5	Wi
ᖶ	15B6	Wo
ᖷ	15B7	Wa
ᖸ	15B8	Ne
ᖹ	15B9	Ni
ᖺ	15BA	No
ᖻ	15BB	Na
ᖼ	15BC	Ke
ᖽ	15BD	Ki
ᖾ	15BE	Ko
ᖿ	15BF	Ka
ᘁ	1601	K

Notes

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). Blackfoot Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.