- Blackfoot language
language
name=Blackfoot
nativename=Siksiká (ᓱᖽᐧᖿ)
states=United States ,Canada
region=Blackfeet Indian Reservation inMontana and Piikani, Siksika, and Kainai Reserves in southernAlberta
speakers=5,100 [Ethnologue's estimate] /
5,000 to <8,000 [ [http://people.uleth.ca/~frantz/blkft.html#EstimatedSpeakers Martin Heavyhead and Don Frantz' estimate] ]
familycolor=American
fam1=Algic
fam2=Algonquian
fam3=Plains Algonquian
iso2=bla|iso3=blaBlackfoot (also known as Siksika [ISO 639-3] , Pikanii, Blackfeet) is the name of any of the
Algonquian languages spoken by theBlackfoot tribe of Native Americans, who currently live in the northwestern plains ofNorth 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. [Mithun (1999:335)]Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is typologically
polysynthetic . Whorf hypothesized that it wasoligosynthetic , but mainstream linguists have rejected this.ounds
Consonants
Blackfoot has ten consonants, of which all but IPA|/ʔ/ and IPA|/x/ can be phonemically long: [http://www.native-languages.org/blackfoot_guide.htm Blackfoot Pronunciation and Spelling Guide] . Native-Languages.org. Retrieved
2007-04-10 ] Frantz, Don. [http://people.uleth.ca/~frantz/blsounds.html The Sounds of Blackfoot] . Retrieved2007-04-11 ]Notes
External links
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bla Ethnologue report for Blackfoot]
* [http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/blackfoot/ Blackfoot language]
* [http://people.uleth.ca/~frantz/blkft.html Don Frantz's page on the Blackfoot language]
* [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Blackfoot-english/ Blackfoot - English Dictionary] : from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] , the Rosetta Edition.References
*cite book |last=Frantz |first=Donald G. |title=Blackfoot Grammar |origyear=1991 |year=1997 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=0-8020-7978-4
*cite book |last=Mithun |first=Marianne |authorlink=Marianne Mithun |title=The Languages of Native North America |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=0-521-29875-X
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