From the website: This project has several goals:
To preserve the dictionary compiled by Mr. Jack Holterman, who was an amateur scholar of Blackfoot.
To provide sound clips for each entry in the dictionary.
To present the headwords and entries in a way that is easy to use and visually appealing.
To make this material available to a wide audience, including those who may not be familiar with linguistics or the Blackfoot language.
The members of the Blackfoot Language Group at the University of Montana hope this project will be useful for language teachers and learners of Blackfoot alike. In order to make Holterman's dictionary more accessible, we have changed the spelling of the entries to the writing system developed by Dr. Donald G. Frantz. Since this writing system is widely used in several different Blackfoot language communities, we hope that this change will make the dictionary easier for more people to use.
From the website: Saokio is a Blackfeet term that describes the prairies as a space that is large, open and flat. At one time the Blackfeet called themselves the Saokio-tapi or the prairie people. On the prairies they used their creativity to change this wide open space into a unique place. Saokio Heritage was created to enhance the appreciation of the wealth of prairie peoples creativity. Our goal is to stimulate and preserve the history, language and traditional knowledge of prairie peoples.
From the website: Although the endeavor to create a publicly accessible Blackfoot-centric library is recent, this project is ultimately the outcome of documentary work that began more than a century ago, and which elaborates on a knowledge base that emerged through a continuity of many thousands of years living in kitawahsinnoon.
