Repost, With Additions, of "Amazing Grace in the Cree Language"

Someone recently recently viewed my post of the hymn “Amazing Grace” being sung in the Cree language.  I realized that I had provided no information about the Cree themselves.

The Nehiyaw tribe is commonly known in English as the Cree tribe.  They are one of the Native North American tribes. Their traditional language is part of the Algonquian group (see below at the # sign) of languages.  Here is a photograph of a young Cree man taken in 1903.

You may notice that the English transliteration of the language is inconsistent.  The same word is represnted as "kihci" and as "kitchi." This is quite common in the transliteration process.  The Chinese language, for example, was represented by at least twelve different transliteration systems before the adoption of the modern Pinyin system. 

#: The Algonquian group includes Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Menominee, Ojibwe (Chippewa),  Shawnee, Potawatomi, Massachusett,  Miqmaq (Mi’kmaq), Mahican, Narragansett, and others.