Blackfoot Documentation: Transcription, Interlinear Analysis, and Electronic Database

FAIN: FN-50064-10

Mizuki Miyashita
University of Montana (Missoula, MT 59801-4494)

The main goal of this project is to document the Blackfoot language, an endangered language spoken in Alberta, Canada, and Montana, United States. The speaker population of Blackfoot is 4,500 in Canada and 100 in the United States. Although a substantial amount of documentation of Blackfoot exists in terms of structural description, texts of stories, and theoretical analysis, there is still much to be documented, especially about how the linguistic properties of Blackfoot are strategically used in conversations. To investigate this aspect, I have been audio- and video-recording spoken Blackfoot that must be transcribed and interlinearly analyzed. The proposed project will be built on my fieldwork and the collaborative project currently underway with support from an NEH digital humanities start-up grant. I will devote my fellowship year to transcribing the audio-video recordings of Blackfoot speech, conducting interlinear analysis of these transcriptions, and creating an electronic database using ELAN. None of the existing documentation and literature in Blackfoot explores conversation and connected speech. Thus, the project will create materials that will complement currently available resources. (Edited by staff)