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 Ikkináínihki '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.