Download the new Switched app for your iPhone

Skip to Content

Free Switched iPhone app - try it now!

Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

Map of the world

Word for the Travel Wise (04/15/06)

United States of AmericaOf all the many sites America is known for in big, big cities and even smaller ones thanks to websites like Roadside America, the one chunk of American history I'd really like to get my hands and feet wet in personally, is that of the Native Americans. Some of my very own ancestors are from the Choctaw tribe which I'd love to know more about, but paying a visit to any Indian reservation in the country would be a highly rewarding learning experience. Take the Blackfoot/Blackfeet Indian Reservation located east of Glacier National Park in Montana for example. The main community is in Browning, MT and is home to an annual festival called Native American Indian days held on pow wow grounds. The event sounds like something anybody with an interest in Native American heritage, culture and history should try to check out while poking around Montana. In the meantime let us begin our journey with a vocab word.

Today's word is Blackfoot word used in the United States:

aohkíí - water

The Blackfoot language or Siksika, is an Algonquian lang spoken by some 8,000 people in southern Alberta, Canada and northern Montana. Despite its low numbers of persons speaking the Native American lingo the Blackfoot language is apparently seeing a linguist shift with the "Old Blackfoot" spoken by the older generations and the "New Blackfoot" being spoken by the younger ones.  To learn more about the four distinct nations of the Blackfoot tribe, which includes that in northern Montana also known as the Blackfeet click here.

To learn more Blackfoot words you can look at the short lost found at Native-Languages.org. They also include several links to places online where further learning may happen. I clicked on a few which required passwords or didn't quite work, but I suggest you go through them all. Perhaps your server or luck will be better than my own.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Learning, North America, United States

Search Travel Deals

Gadling Features



Be sure to check out Episode 5 of Travel Talk TV, which features a Santa Cruz beach adventure; explains why Scottish money is no good; shows how to cook brats the German way; and offers international dating tips!

Categories

Become our Fan on Facebook!

Gadling on Facebook

Featured Galleries (view all)

Dim Sum Dialogues: Bangkok
Amusing Safety Signs
Frank's Final Flight
The King Tut exhibit in SF
Flea Market Finds: Brooklyn
East of Africa: Ilakaka
Amsterdam's Floating Flower Market
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

Our Writers

Grant Martin

Editor-in-chief

RSS Feed

Scott Carmichael

Executive Editor

RSS Feed

Don George

Features Editor

RSS Feed

View more Writers

Aol Travel.

Travel Ideas

Autoblog Green

DailyFinance

FOXNews

Engadget

Joystiq

Luxist

Switched.com

FanHouse

Download Squad