This project was conducted over several years to examine the prosody (rhythm and intonation) of Blackfoot, an Indigenous language spoken in Montana and the Canadian province Alberta. Blackfoot, a member of the Algonquian language family, is infamous among linguists for having significantly different linguistic structures than other Algonquian languages. This research project included investigating under-researched features in the language’s sound system as well as collecting and processing data and developing pedagogical tools.

For the project, over 1,000 Blackfoot words were recorded in isolation, and seven recordings were made of connected speech, including narratives and conversations. Six native speakers of Blackfoot contributed to the recording sessions. The recordings of isolated words were segmented into small, single-word sound files and transcribed in both the Blackfoot orthography and the International Phonetic Alphabet. They were then analyzed in terms of phonetics, the sounds that make up the words, and phonology, the interactions among the sounds. In particular, the analysis focused on describing the movement of pitch within the words (word melody), and pitch and amplitude were also measured to examine the acoustic correlates of accented vowels. The study also investigated the status of a particular consonant, a velar fricative, that is under-researched and that is important to the study of syllables, which often serve as a basis for prosodic analysis.

These studies resulted in publications in the Papers of the Algonquian Conference. Most of the recordings of connected speech were also translated and transcribed, and some of them were analyzed. These recordings, including basic metadata, are archived at the Library of the American Philosophical Society.

The project also produced verb paradigms, in which 21 verbs were inflected for first person singular and third person singular and conjugated with 20 prefixes indicating tense, aspect, and modals (TAM), resulting in 42 forms per verb stem. These forms are available online (http://www.umt.edu/blg/research1/blackfoot%20prosody/Derived%20Verbs.php) as PDF files and PowerPoint slides. The verb forms are provided in the Blackfoot orthography, with pitch accent indicated by an acute symbol over accented vowels. The forms are organized in two ways: by verb stem (with sheets containing the 42 inflected forms of a single verb stem) and by TAM prefix (with sheets containing the inflected forms of 20 verb stems with the same TAM prefix). The PowerPoint slides are presented as a slideshow, with each verb form linked to a sound file of its pronunciation. The PDF files do not link to sound files, but they can be printed. These conjugated and inflected verbs are useful for linguistic research, not only in phonetics and phonology but also in other fields such as morphology and semantics. They can also be used as pedagogical materials.

One significant result of this research that was not anticipated in the initial grant proposal was the development of a technological tool for teaching Blackfoot pronunciation. The tool, Melodic Transcription in Language Documentation and Application (MeTILDA), provides guidance for language learners to acquire accurate pronunciation of words with respect to pitch movement. This project component emerged from the less-technological applied activity. Prior to MeTILDA, the research into pitch movement in Blackfoot words had resulted in the development of a visual guide to pronouncing Blackfoot words with correct pitch movement, called Pitch Art. MeTILDA makes the creation of Pitch Art easier, because it allows users to generate Pitch Art graphics using one online platform instead of three offline software tools. MeTILDA also includes an innovative aspect in that the scale of the pitch movement depicted matches speakers’ perception of the sounds, without being confounded by vocal range. MeTILDA’s initial development has been disseminated at conferences.

The range of activities in this project, from basic linguistic analysis to application, is transformative with regard to other endangered language research. As the prosodic or melodic study of Indigenous languages is under-researched, the MeTILDA tool is innovative and highly promising in influencing the way language instructors teach their learners how to pronounce words. However, while the research in this case was on an Indigenous language, the developed tool is applicable to any language featuring pitch movement as an important part of prosody, such as languages with tones. Thus, MeTILDA can be easily adopted by researchers and instructors of languages that are more widely learned in the United States (e.g., Japanese, Chinese).  

The study of the sound structure of a language is significant both to linguistics and pedagogy. Understanding how the sounds of a language are organized and how they may be reproduced is useful for scientists and heritage learners alike.

Finally, this project also contributed to student training. Twelve students were trained in audio recording, data processing, and phonetic analysis; six of the students were undergraduates, of whom five were from Indigenous communities in Montana.

Last Modified: 01/29/2020
Modified by: Mizuki Miyashita