Blackfoot language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blackfoot Siksiká
Spoken in:	United States, Canada
Region:	Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and in southern Alberta
Total speakers:	5,100
Language family:	Algic Algonquian Blackfoot
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`bla`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`bla`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Blackfoot 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 Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is typologically polysynthetic. Whorf hypothesized that it was oligosynthetic, but mainstream linguistics has rejected this.

Of all the Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is often said to have diverged most drastically from Proto-Algonquian. It is significantly different both phonologically and, especially, grammatically from the other languages in the family.

1 Sounds
- 1.1 Consonants
- 1.2 Vowels
2 Writing System
- 2.1 Unicode table for Blackfoot
3 External links

[edit] Sounds

[edit] Consonants

	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.

[edit] Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i	iː
Close-Mid					o	oː
Open-Mid					ɔ	ɔː
Open	æ	æː	a	aː

Some allophonic changes among the vowels: /a/ is raised to [a̝] when followed by a long consonant, /i/ becomes [ɪ] in closed syllables, /æ/ becomes [e] when followed by /ʔ/ and [ɛ] in closed syllables, and /o/ becomes [ʊ] when followed by a long consonant. Blackfoot is pitch accent based, meaning every word has at least one high-pitched vowel, and high pitch is contrastive with non-high pitch. At the end of a word, non-high pitched vowels are devoiced.

[edit] 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.

Many of the symbols are shared with the Cree language, but were given completely different pronunciations for Blackfoot. In particular the order of all the vowels was swapped around.

If you want to view this alphabet you will need to download a font such as Sans Serif, which you can get from this site: LanguageGeek.com font downloads. After you have installed the font, the table below should display correctly (as should all Wikipedia native American language pages).

In addition to the original Blackfoot script (shown below), sometimes Blackfoot is (confusingly) written in a version of the Cree script. Blackfoot is also often written in Latin: A(a) À(a, high) Á(aː) Â(aː, high) E(æ) È(æ, high) É(æː) Ê(æː, high) H(x) I(i) Ì(i, high) Í(iː) Î(iː, high) K(k) KK(kː) M(m) MM(mː) N(n) NN(nː) O(ɔ) Ò(ɔ, high) Ó(ɔː) Ô(ɔː, high) P(p) PP(pː) Q(ʔ) S(s) SS(sː) T(t) TT(tː) U(o) Ù(o, high) Ú(oː) Û(oː, high) V/W(w) Y(j) Z(t͡s) ZZ(t͡sː)

[edit] 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