[13] In Canada, this loss has been attributed largely to residential schools, where Indigenous students were often punished severely for speaking their first languages.

[15] As a result of these losses, the Blackfoot community has launched numerous language revitalization efforts, include the Piikani Traditional Knowledge Services and many more.

Blackfoot is a member of the Algonquian language family belonging to the Plains areal grouping along with Arapaho, Gros Ventre, and Cheyenne.

Blackfoot is spoken in Northwestern Montana and throughout Alberta, Canada, making it geographically one of the westernmost Algonquian languages.

The Blackfoot people had been one of many Native American nations that inhabited the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River.

Forced to move because of wars with neighboring tribes, the Blackfoot people settled all around the plains area, eventually concentrating in what is now Montana and Alberta.

The northern plains, where the Blackfoot settled, had incredibly harsh winters, and the flat land provided little escape from the winds.

[19] The school was rife with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, which left a lasting impact on the Blackfoot children who attended.

[20] The trauma endured by students, as well as the subsequent repression of their Indigenous language and culture, has been credited, in part, with the loss in the number of Blackfoot speakers.

Even in stories in which grammatically inanimate objects are markedly anthropomorphized, such as talking flowers, speakers will not use animate agreement markers with them.

[36] There is an ordering restriction if the Distinct Third Person (DTP) attached pronoun /-aawa/ is used in which the subject independent noun phrase must occur before the verb.

Generally, information encoded in the pre-verb can include adverbs, most pronouns, locatives, manners, aspect, mood, and tense.

[33] When a sentence contains two or more particular animate gender nouns as arguments proximate (major third person/3rd) and obviative (minor third person/4th) markings are used to disambiguate.

Redirectional markers, referred to as inverse and direct theme in the literature, can be applied to indicate that the fourth person is the subject argument.

[43] Omaᖲᒐom-wathat-AN.SGisttoánaᖱᔈᒪᖷᖻisttoan-waknife-AN.SGiihtsíkahksiniiʼpiᖱᑊᒧᐧᖿᐦᖽᐧᖹᑯiiht-íkahksinii-ʼp-yimeans-cut.off-UNSPEC.SUB-INAN.PLannistsiᖳᖹᔈᒧᐧann-istsithat-INAN.PLikkstsíksiistsi.ᖱᘁᔈᒧᐧᖽᐧᒧᐧ᙮ikkstsíksi-istsibranch-INAN.PLOma isttoána iihtsíkahksiniiʼpi annistsi ikkstsíksiistsi.ᖲᒐ ᖱᔈᒪᖷᖻ ᖱᑊᒧᐧᖿᐦᖽᐧᖹᑯ ᖳᖹᔈᒧᐧ ᖱᘁᔈᒧᐧᖽᐧᒧᐧ᙮om-wa isttoan-wa iiht-íkahksinii-ʼp-yi ann-istsi ikkstsíksi-istsithat-AN.SG knife-AN.SG means-cut.off-UNSPEC.SUB-INAN.PL that-INAN.PL branch-INAN.PL'The knife cut off those branches.'

[44] The only required component of a clause in Blackfoot is the verb, referred to as a verbal complex in the Algonquian literature, that must be appropriately inflected according to the standard template: preverb – root – medial – finalPreverbs are prefixes which encode adverbs, most pronouns, locatives, manners, aspect, mood, and tense.

Finals can include causative, benefactive, reciprocal, and reflexive affixes that either decrease or increase the valency of the stem they are attached to.

[49] A syllabics script, ᑯᖾᖹ ᖿᐟᖻ ᓱᖽᐧᖿ piikani kainai siksika, was created by Anglican missionary John William Tims around 1888, for his Bible translation work.

[51] For example, a secondary documentation exists today, Blackfoot Dictionary of Stems, Roots and Affixes, 3rd Edition (2017), written by Donald G. Frantz and Norma Jean Russell.

[52] The transcription uses an official, technically accurate alphabet and the authors of this book have classified entries and selected examples based on more than 46 years of research.

[52] This book is comprehensive and includes enough information for those who wish to learn Blackfoot and for those who have an interest in Native Studies and North American linguistics.

In the late 1900s, many tribes began a surge of revitalization efforts to encourage cultural awareness of indigenous customs and traditions.

Today, there are head-start programs in primary and secondary schools on the reservation to teach even infants and toddlers about the history of the tribe from an early age.

[55] In order to create jobs for the Blackfoot people with real-world applications, the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council launched a company called Chief Mountain Technologies in 2009.

This company gives tribal members the opportunity to work in the fields of computer science and business in Browning, Montana, on behalf of various government organizations.

[56] Radio station KBWG in Browning, Montana, broadcasts a one-hour show for Blackfoot language learners four times a week.

[57] The Voice of Browning, Thunder Radio, FM 107.5, or Ksistsikam ayikinaan (literally 'voice from nowhere') went live in 2010, and focuses on positive programming.

A story in the Great Falls Tribune noted, "When the station was replaying programming that originated elsewhere, the radio was all 'tear in my beer' and 'your cheatin' heart.'

The funding was put to use in the form of digital libraries containing interviews with native speakers, online courses, and various other resources in the hopes of promoting Blackfoot language and passing it down to subsequent generations.

[63] Their vision is to enhance, preserve, protect, and be keepers of the Piikani culture, language, spirituality, songs, customs, and history.