What is the Blackfoot alphabet?

The Blackfoot alphabet is a syllabary, which means that the writing system uses symbols to represent syllables instead of consonants and vowels. The syllabary conveys the Blackfoot language, which is spoken by tribes of Indigenous people in North America.

The syllabary was invented by a missionary in the nineteenth century. People write the language from left to right. As of 2015, nearly all the speakers of the Blackfoot language live in Canada, with a minority of speakers in the United States. There are four dialects of the language. There are also distinct generational differences, with older speakers using "High Blackfoot" and younger speakers using "New Blackfoot."