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Blackfoot language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Blackfoot Siksiká (ᓱᖽᐧᖿ) |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | United States, Canada | |
| Region: | Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana and Piikani, Siksika, and Kainai Reserves in southern Alberta | |
| Total speakers: | 5,100[1] / 5,000 to <8,000[2] |
|
| Language family: | Algic Algonquian Plains Algonquian Blackfoot |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | bla | |
| ISO 639-3: | bla | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
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 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.[3]
Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is typologically polysynthetic. Whorf hypothesized that it was oligosynthetic, but mainstream linguistics has rejected this.
Contents |
Blackfoot has ten consonants, of which all but /ʔ/ and /x/ can be phonemically long:[4][5]
| 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.
Blackfoot has a vowel system with three monophthongs, /i o a/. Length is distinctive (áakokaawa, "s/he will rope" vs. áakookaawa, "s/he will sponsor a sundance"):[6][4][5]
| 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).[7] The second is pronounced [au] before /ʔ/ and [ɔ] elsewhere. The third is /oi/.[8] 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.[6]
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").[9] At the end of a word, non-high pitched vowels are devoiced.[5][10]
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.
| 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 |
- ^ Ethnologue's estimate
- ^ Martin Heavyhead and Don Frantz' estimate
- ^ Mithun (1999:335)
- ^ a b Blackfoot Pronunciation and Spelling Guide. Native-Languages.org. Retrieved 2007-04-10
- ^ a b c Frantz, Don. The Sounds of Blackfoot. Retrieved 2007-04-11
- ^ a b Frantz (1997:1-2)
- ^ Frantz (1997:2)
- ^ Frantz (1997:2-3)
- ^ Frantz (1997:3)
- ^ Frantz (1997:5)
- 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.
- Frantz, Donald G. [1991] (1997). 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.
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Nations: Northern Peigan · South Peigan · Kainai Nation · Siksika Nation Other: Blackfeet Indian Reservation · Blackfoot mythology · Blackfoot music · Blackfoot language |