148. Blackfoot

 

Blackfoot, or Siksika is an Algonquian language with about 8,000 speakers in the US state of Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta.
The Blackfoot syllabary was devised by John William Tims (1857-1945), an Anglican missionary from England who spent 12 years from 1883 to 1895 among the Blackfoot people in the North-West Territories of Canada (now Alberta). Tims based his Blackfoot syllabary on James Evans' Ojibwe syllabary and used it to produce a dictionary of the Blackfoot language and translations of a number a biblical texts.
Nowadays the syllabary is rarely used as the Latin alphabet is prefered.

Blackfoot syllabary

Sample text

Transliteration
Aamohka nitaayakitsinikatawahka kiaayaowahka ki omahka kipitakiwahka anistawa Ksistsikomaaki. Iitoisiyihk. Iiksipihtsi omii otsitotoispima miini.

Links

Further information about the Blackfoot syllabary
http://www.languagegeek.com/algon/siksika/blk_syllabarium.html
Blackfoot Language - details of the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, etc
http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/blackfoot/
Blackfoot words and phrases with audio
http://www.schoolnet.ca/aboriginal/audiosam/blackfot/black-e.html
http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/howed/lexicon.htm
Official site of the Blackfoot Nation
http://www.blackfoot.org