Blackfoot — Niitsí'powahsin (language page)
Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending
How to read this entry: Documented fact = published record cited in Sources. The Collection's standing = what the Sacred Name Collection's recovery shelf actually holds, stated on the page's face — held, partial, or not held — audited 2026-10-30. The Blackfoot nations' own programmes lead the living language; this page names them and copies nothing from them. No ceremonial or restricted content appears here.
The Blackfoot Confederacy — Siksika, Kainai and Piikani in what is now Alberta, and the Blackfeet Nation in Montana — speaks Niitsí'powahsin. Some 2,900 native speakers were counted in 2016; UNESCO classes the language Definitely Endangered, and the audit record attributes the loss largely to the residential schools (Canada Nations Language Audit, 2026-10-30).
The Collection's standing — NOT HELD, stated on the face
- NOT HELD. No Blackfoot-language text stands on the Collection's recovery shelf, and no entry for the language stands in the recovery register — the audit names this the clearest shelf gap in the Canadian set.
- Class: RECOVERABLE WITH LIVING HOLDERS. The language lives and its holders are organised; printed documentation is deep (Frantz & Russell's grammar and dictionary; Uhlenbeck's published texts), and any recovery pass runs under the register's public-domain law — the modern dictionaries are copyright works, named here as scholarship, never copied.
The nations' own programmes — named, never copied
- Nation school programmes — Piikani children learn Blackfoot from kindergarten through grade 6; the nations carry the language in their own schools.
- Simon Fraser University's digital revitalisation project, led from Piikani Nation with the university's Indigenous Languages Program — recordings and teaching resources held under the nation's direction.
- FirstVoices community archives — Blackfoot community teams hold their own language archives under their own ownership: FirstVoices.
Sources
- Canada Nations Language Audit (this programme, 2026-10-30), §6.2 — speaker count (2016), UNESCO class, loss attribution, programme record.
- First Peoples' Cultural Council, FirstVoices (firstvoices.com) — archive standing, accessed 2026-10-30.
Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) Speaker count is the 2016 line carried by the audit; no newer census figure is asserted. (2) Programme details stand at the audit's summary depth; the nations' own pages govern.