The third volume in the First Nations Language Readers series--meant for language learners and language users--this collection presents eight Blackfoot stories told by Lena Russell Ikkin nihki 'Gentle Singer, ' a fluent speaker of Blackfoot from the Kainai (Blood) reserve in southern Alberta. In contrast with other Algonquian languages, such as Cree and Saulteaux (Ojibwe), Blackfoot is not usually written in syllabics, so these stories are presented in the Blackfoot language using the Roman alphabet, together with the English translation. The spelling system is based on the conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and should be transparent for native speakers of Blackfoot as well as for linguists. The Reader includes a Blackfoot-to-English glossary containing all the nouns, verbs, adjuncts, etc., found in the texts, as well as stress or pitch accents over the vowel or vowels which bear the accent.


A fluent speaker of Blackfoot from the Kainai reserve in southern Alberta, Lena Russell’s Blackfoot name is ＂Gentle Singer.＂ The author of thirteen resource books, she helped develop the Blackfoot language curriculum and taught it for over 50 years.Inge Genee’s Blackfoot name is ’Eagle Woman.’ A linguist at the University of Lethbridge, she has published and presented on various languages, including English, Dutch, Irish, and Blackfoot.