Of 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