128 TRANSACTIONS OF THK CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. V. 



THE BLACKFOOT LANGUAGE. 



By Rev. John Maclean, M.A., Ph.D. 



^Read nth April, iSg6?\ 



The Blackfoot Language is spoken by the Indians belonging to the 

 Blackfoot Confederacy, consisting of the tribes known as Bloods, Piegans 

 and Blackfeet. These tribes are resident in Montana, United States, and 

 Alberta, Canada. They possess no written characters, and consequently 

 have not any native literature. Their knowledge of important events is 

 transmitted by means of oral tradition, and their records of deeds are 

 expressed by picture-writing. 



The language is a rich deep guttural, difficult at first to be pronounced 

 or understood, owing to the rapid utterances of the Indians. Students 

 of Indian languages are very apt to make mistakes in the early stages of 

 their studies, from the fact that many of the Indians conversing with 

 them use " broken speech." At once they conclude that the language is 

 very easily acquired, but if they will continue their studies faithfully they 

 will soon learn that they have a hard task before them, which can only 

 be mastered by intelligent and enthusiastic labour. Some time will 

 elapse before the sounds peculiar to the language become familiar to the 

 ear, but gradually these will separate themselves and become easily 

 distinguished. 



One striking peculiarity is the dropping of the first and last syllables 

 of words. Familiarity with the language will enable the student to 

 detect this whenever it is done. Take such an example as Jiitjikskthn^ 

 which means o)ie. Sometimes it is expressed in full, but I have often- 

 times heard it as follows : nituks, nitukska, tukskum and tukska. 

 The prevalence of the guttural induces this dropping of syllables. The 

 first and last syllables are at times expressed in such a low tone that 

 they become inaudible to our ears. 



The Blackfoot, like many other Indian languages, possesses the 

 property of agglutination, and hence assumes the verbal form of expres- 

 sion. Indian languages are languages of verbs, and the Blackfoot is 

 no exception to the general rule. He who would master an Indian 

 language must give his days and nights to the study of the verb. 



Dialectic changes are rapidly taking place amongst the tribes, resulting 

 from separation. Differences of pronunciation and different words 



