A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Siksika | |
|---|---|
| Siksiká (ᓱᖽᐧᖿ), Siksikáíʼpowahsin (ᓱᘁᓱᘁᖳᐟᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ), Niitsipowahsin (ᖹᐨᓱᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ) | |
 Frances Densmore at a recording session with Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief in 1916 | |
| Native to | Canada, United States |
| Region | Piikani Nation, Siksika Nation, and Kainai Nation in southern Alberta; Blackfeet Nation in Montana |
| Ethnicity | 15,000 Blackfoot[1] |
Native speakers | 2,900 (2016)[1] |
Algic
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Blackfoot Syllabics Sometimes Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | bla |
| ISO 639-3 | bla |
| Glottolog | siks1238 |
| ELP | Niitsipowahsin |
 Blackfoot is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
| People | Niitsitapi (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ) |
|---|---|
| Language | Niitsipowahsin (ᖹᐨᓱᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ) |
| Country | Nitawahsin'nanni (ᖹᒣᖷᑊᓱᐡ ᖻᐡᖹ) |
The Blackfoot language, also called Siksiká (its denomination in ISO 639-3, English: /ˈsɪksəkə/ SIK-sə-kə; Siksiká , syllabics ᓱᖽᐧᖿ), often anglicised as Siksika, is an Algonquian language spoken by the Blackfoot or 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 which is Brocket (Piikani) and Aamsskáápipikani (Southern Piegan), in northwestern Montana.[2] The name Blackfoot probably comes from the blackened soles of the leather shoes that the people wore.[3]
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.[4] Among the Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is relatively divergent in phonology and lexicon.[5] 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.[6][7] Blackfoot language has been declining in the number of native speakers and is classified as either a threatened or endangered language, depending on the source used.[8]
Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is considered to be a polysynthetic language due to its large morpheme inventory and word internal complexity.[9] 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.[10] Both noun and verb stems cannot be used bare but must be inflected.[11] Due to its morphological complexity, Blackfoot has a flexible word order.
The Blackfoot language has experienced a substantial decrease in speakers since the 1960s and is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.[12] In Canada, this loss has been attributed largely to residential schools, where Indigenous students were often punished severely for speaking their first languages.[13] Widespread language loss can also be attributed to the Sixties Scoop, through which thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families, often without parental consent, and relocated by the government into non-Indigenous families.[14] As a result of these losses, the Blackfoot community has launched numerous language revitalization efforts, include the Piikani Traditional Knowledge Services and many more.
Language variations
Pied Noir
Pied-Noir is an alternate name for the Blackfoot tribe. The exact translation is 'black foot' in French.[15]
Other
Siksikáíʼpowahsin[16] (syllabics: ᓱᘁᓱᘁᖳᐟᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ) and Niitsipowahsin[17] (ᖹᐨᓱᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ) are two other language variations for Blackfoot.
Classification
Blackfoot is a member of the Algonquian language family belonging to the Plains areal grouping 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
The Blackfoot people had been one of many Native American nations that inhabited the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River. The people were bison hunters, with settlements in what is now the northern United States and southern Canada. Forced to move because of wars with neighboring tribes, the Blackfoot people settled all around the plains area, eventually concentrating in what is now Montana and Alberta. 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, such as 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, settlers had eradicated the bison from the Great Plains. This took away the main element of Blackfoot life and the people’s ability to be self-sustaining. With their main food source gone, the Blackfoot were forced to rely on government support.[3]
In 1886, the Old Sun Residential School opened on the Blackfoot Reserve in Alberta. In 1908, it was described by an official survey as "unsanitary" and "unsuitable in every way for such an institution". Regardless, it remained operational until its closure in 1971. Dozens of Blackfoot children died while attending.[18] The school was rife with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, which left a lasting impact on the Blackfoot children who attended.[19] The trauma endured by students, as well as the subsequent repression of their Indigenous language and culture, has been credited, in part, with the loss in the number of Blackfoot speakers.[20]
Phonology
Consonants
Blackfoot has nineteen consonants, of which all but /ʔ/, /x/, /j/ and ?pojem= form pairs distinguished by length. One of the two affricates /k͡s/ is unusual for being heterorganic.[21][22]
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | mː ⟨mm⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | nː ⟨nn⟩ | ||||
| Plosive | p ⟨p⟩ | pː ⟨pp⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | tː ⟨tt⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | kː ⟨kk⟩ | ʔ ⟨'⟩ | |
| Affricate | t͡s ⟨ts⟩ | t͡sː ⟨tss⟩ | k͡s ⟨ks⟩ | k͡sː ⟨kss⟩ | ||||
| Fricative | s ⟨s⟩ | sː ⟨ss⟩ | x ~ χ ⟨h⟩ | |||||
| Approximant | w ⟨w⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ | ||||||
Vowels
Monophthongs
Blackfoot has a vowel system with three monophthongs, /i o a/.[21][22][23]
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i ⟨i⟩ | iː ⟨ii⟩ | o ⟨o⟩ | oː ⟨oo⟩ | ||
| Low | a ⟨a⟩ | aː ⟨aa⟩ | ||||
The short monophthongs exhibit allophonic changes as well. The vowels /a/ and /o/ are raised to and respectively when followed by a long consonant. The vowel /i/ becomes in closed syllables.[23]
Diphthongs
There are three additional diphthongs in Blackfoot. The first diphthong ai is pronounced before a long consonant, (or , in the dialect of the Blackfoot Reserve) before /i/ or /ʔ/, and elsewhere is pronounced in the Blood Reserve dialect or in the Blackfoot Reserve dialect. The second diphthong ao is pronounced before /ʔ/ and elsewhere. The third diphthong oi may be pronounced before a long consonant and as elsewhere.[24]
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.[7]
áakokaawa 'he will rope' áakookaawa 'she will sponsor a Sundance'
Consonants can also be lengthened with the exception of /ʔ/, /x/, /j/ and ?pojem=.
kiipíppo 'one hundred' nínna 'my father' sokáʼpssiwa '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.[7]