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Ojibwe , also known as Ojibwa , Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878
''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''
/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of North America of the
Algonquian language family The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically simi ...
.Goddard, Ives, 1979.Bloomfield, Leonard, 1958. The language is characterized by a series of
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
s that have local names and frequently local writing systems. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent, and no standard writing system that covers all dialects. Dialects of Ojibwemowin are spoken in Canada, from southwestern
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, through
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan, with outlying communities in
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
;Nichols, John, 1980, pp. 1–2. and in the United States, from
Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
to
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
and Minnesota, with a number of communities in North Dakota and
Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
, as well as groups that removed to Kansas and Oklahoma during the Indian Removal period. While there is some variation in the classification of its dialects, at least the following are recognized, from east to west:
Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...
, Eastern Ojibwe, Ottawa (Odawa), Western Ojibwe (Saulteaux), Oji-Cree (Severn Ojibwe), Northwestern Ojibwe, and Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa). Based upon contemporary field research, J. R. Valentine also recognizes several other dialects: Berens Ojibwe in northwestern Ontario, which he distinguishes from Northwestern Ojibwe; North of (Lake) Superior; and Nipissing. The latter two cover approximately the same territory as Central Ojibwa, which he does not recognize.Valentine, J. Randolph, 1994, p. 456. The aggregated dialects of Ojibwemowin comprise the second most commonly spoken
First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...
language in Canada (after Cree), and the fourth most widely spoken in the United States or Canada behind Navajo, the Inuit languages and Cree. Ojibwemowin is a relatively healthy indigenous language. The Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School teaches all classes to children in Ojibwe only.


Classification

The Algonquian language family of which Ojibwemowin is a member is itself a member of the
Algic The Algic languages (also Algonquian–Wiyot–Yurok or Algonquian–Ritwan) are an indigenous language family of North America. Most Algic languages belong to the Algonquian subfamily, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains to ...
language family, other Algic languages being Wiyot and Yurok. Ojibwe is sometimes described as a Central Algonquian language, along with Fox, Cree,
Menominee The Menominee (; mez, omǣqnomenēwak meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recog ...
, Miami-Illinois, Potawatomi, and
Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
. Central Algonquian is a geographical term of convenience rather than a genetic subgroup, and its use does not indicate that the Central languages are more closely related to each other than to the other Algonquian languages.


Exonyms and endonyms

The most general Indigenous designation for the language is 'speaking the native language' ( 'native person,' verb suffix 'speak a language,' suffix 'nominalizer'), with varying spellings and pronunciations depending upon dialect. Some speakers use the term .Valentine, J. Randolph, 1994, p. 1, Fn. 2. The general term in Oji-Cree (Severn Ojibwe) is , although is widely recognized by Severn speakers. Some speakers of Saulteaux Ojibwe refer to their language as . The Ottawa dialect is sometimes referred to as , although the general designation is , with the latter term also applied to or Eastern Ojibwe.Valentine, J. Randolph, 2001. Other local terms are listed in Ojibwe dialects. English terms include ''Ojibwe,'' with variants including ''Ojibwa'' and ''Ojibway''. The related term ''Chippewa'' is more commonly employed in the United States and in southwestern Ontario among descendants of Ojibwe migrants from the United States.


Relationship with Potawatomi

Ojibwe and Potawatomi are frequently viewed as being more closely related to each other than to other Algonquian languages. Ojibwe and Potawatomi have been proposed as likely candidates for forming a genetic subgroup within
Proto-Algonquian Proto-Algonquian (commonly abbreviated PA) is the proto-language from which the various Algonquian languages are descended. It is generally estimated to have been spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, but there is less agreement on where it was ...
, although the required research to ascertain the linguistic history and status of a hypothetical "Ojibwe–Potawatomi" subgroup has not yet been undertaken. A discussion of Algonquian family subgroups indicates that "Ojibwe–Potawatomi is another possibility that awaits investigation."Goddard, Ives, 1979, p. 95. In a proposed consensus classification of Algonquian languages, Goddard (1996) classifies Ojibwa and Potawatomi as "Ojibwayan," although no supporting evidence is adduced. The Central languages share a significant number of common features. These features can generally be attributed to
diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemica ...
of features through borrowing: "Extensive lexical, phonological, and perhaps grammatical borrowing—the diffusion of elements and features across language boundaries—appears to have been the major factor in giving the languages in the area of the Upper Great Lakes their generally similar cast, and it has not been possible to find any shared innovations substantial enough to require the postulation of a genetically distinct Central Algonquian subgroup." The possibility that the proposed genetic subgrouping of Ojibwa and Potawatomi can also be accounted for as diffusion has also been raised: "The putative Ojibwa–Potawatomi subgroup is similarly open to question, but cannot be evaluated without more information on Potawatomi dialects."


Geographic distribution

Ojibwe communities are found in Canada from southwestern
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, through
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, southern Manitoba and parts of southern Saskatchewan; and in the United States from northern
Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
through northern
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
and northern Minnesota, with a number of communities in northern North Dakota and northern
Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
. Groups of speakers of the Ottawa dialect migrated to Kansas and Oklahoma during the historical period, with a small amount of linguistic documentation of the language in Oklahoma. The presence of Ojibwe in
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
has been noted. Current census data indicate that all varieties of Ojibwe are spoken by approximately 56,531 people. This figure reflects census data from the
2000 United States Census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 cen ...
and the 2006 Canadian census. The Ojibwe language is reported as spoken by a total of 8,791 people in the United StatesU.S. English Foundation: Ojibwa
. Retrieved November 12, 2009.
of which 7,355 are Native Americanshttps://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-5-pt1.pdf U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population and Housing,''Characteristics of American Indians and Alaska Natives by Tribe and Language: 2000''. PHC-5. Washington, DC, 2003. and by as many as 47,740 in Canada, making it one of the largest Algic languages by numbers of speakers. The Red Lake, White Earth, and
Leech Lake Leech Lake is a lake located in north central Minnesota, United States. It is southeast of Bemidji, located mainly within the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, and completely within the Chippewa National Forest. It is used as a reservoir. The lake ...
reservations are known for their tradition of singing
hymns A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...
in the Ojibwe language. As of 2011, Ojibwe is the official language of Red Lake.


Dialects

Because the dialects of Ojibwe are at least partly mutually intelligible, Ojibwe is usually considered to be a single language with a number of dialects, i.e. Ojibwe is "... conventionally regarded as a single language consisting of a continuum of dialectal varieties since ... every dialect is at least partly intelligible to the speakers of the neighboring dialects." The degree of mutual intelligibility between nonadjacent dialects varies considerably; recent research has shown that there is strong differentiation between the Ottawa dialect spoken in southern Ontario and northern Michigan; the Severn Ojibwa dialect spoken in northern Ontario and Manitoba; and the Algonquin dialect spoken in southwestern Quebec. Valentine notes that isolation is the most plausible explanation for the distinctive linguistic features found in these three dialects.J. Randolph Valentine, 1994, pp. 43–44. Many communities adjacent to these relatively sharply differentiated dialects show a mix of transitional features, reflecting overlap with other nearby dialects. While each of these dialects has undergone innovations that make them distinctive, their status as part of the Ojibwe language complex is not in dispute. The relatively low degrees of mutual intelligibility between some nonadjacent Ojibwe dialects led Rhodes and Todd to suggest that Ojibwe should be analyzed as a linguistic subgroup consisting of several languages. While there is some variation in the classification of Ojibwe dialects, at a minimum the following are recognized, proceeding west to east: Western Ojibwe (Saulteaux), Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa), Northwestern Ojibwe, Severn Ojibwe (Oji-Cree), Ottawa (Odawa), Eastern Ojibwe, and
Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...
. Based upon contemporary field research, Valentine also recognizes several other dialects: Berens Ojibwe in northwestern Ontario, which he distinguishes from Northwestern Ojibwe; North of (Lake) Superior; and Nipissing. The latter two cover approximately the same territory as Central Ojibwa, which he does not recognize. Two recent analyses of the relationships between the Ojibwe dialects are in agreement on the assignment of the strongly differentiated Ottawa dialect to a separate subgroup, and the assignment of Severn Ojibwe and Algonquin to another subgroup, and differ primarily with respect to the relationships between the less strongly differentiated dialects. Rhodes and Todd recognize several different dialectal subgroupings within Ojibwe: (a) Ottawa; (b) Severn and Algonquian; (c) a third subgroup which is further divided into (i) a subgrouping of Northwestern Ojibwe and Saulteaux, and a subgrouping consisting of Eastern Ojibwe and a further subgrouping comprising Southwestern Ojibwe and Central Ojibwe. Valentine has proposed that Ojibwe dialects are divided into three groups: a northern tier consisting of Severn Ojibwe and Algonquin; a southern tier consisting of "Odawa, Chippewa, Eastern Ojibwe, the Ojibwe of the Border Lakes region between Minnesota and Ontario, and Saulteaux; and third, a transitional zone between these two polar groups, in which there is a mixture of northern and southern features."


''Lingua franca''

Several different Ojibwe dialects have functioned as '' lingua franca'' or trade languages in the circum- Great Lakes area, particularly in interactions with speakers of other Algonquian languages. Documentation of such usage dates from the 18th and 19th centuries, but earlier use is likely, with reports as early as 1703 suggesting that Ojibwe was used by different groups from the
Gulf of Saint Lawrence , image = Baie de la Tour.jpg , alt = , caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec , image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg , alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...
to Lake Winnipeg, and from as far south as
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
to Hudson Bay. A trade language is "a language customarily used for communication between speakers of different languages, even though it may be that neither speaker has the trade language as his dominant language" although "there is a relatively high degree of bilingualism involving the trade language." Documentation from the 17th century indicates that the Wyandot language (also called Huron), one of the Iroquoian languages, was also used as a trade language east of the Great Lakes by speakers of the Nipissing and
Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...
dialects of Ojibwe, and also by other groups south of the Great Lakes, including the Winnebago and by a group of unknown affiliation identified only as "Assistaeronon." The political decline of the Hurons in the 18th century and the ascendancy of Ojibwe-speaking groups including the Ottawa led to the replacement of Huron as a ''lingua franca''. In the area east of Georgian Bay, the Nipissing dialect was a trade language. In the
Lower Peninsula of Michigan The Lower Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Lower Michigan – is the larger, southern and less elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; the other being the Upper Peninsula, which is separated by the S ...
, the eastern end of the
Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by ...
, the area between
Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
and Lake Huron, and along the north shore of Georgian Bay, the Ottawa dialect served as a trade language. In the area south of Lake Superior and west of Lake Michigan Southwestern Ojibwe was the trade language.Rhodes, Richard, 1982. A widespread pattern of asymmetrical bilingualism is found in the area south of the Great Lakes in which speakers of Potawatomi or Menominee, both Algonquian languages, also spoke Ojibwe, but Ojibwe speakers did not speak the other languages. It is known that some speakers of Menominee also speak Ojibwe and that the pattern persisted into the 20th century. Similarly, bilingualism in Ojibwe is still common among Potawatomis who speak Potawatomi. Reports from traders and travellers as early as 1744 indicate that speakers of
Menominee The Menominee (; mez, omǣqnomenēwak meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recog ...
, another Algonquian language, used Ojibwe as a ''lingua franca''. Other reports from the 18th century and the early 19th century indicate that speakers of the unrelated
Siouan language Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who call the entire ...
Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) also used Ojibwe when dealing with Europeans and others.Nichols, John, 1995, p. 1. Other reports indicate that agents of the American government at Green Bay, Wisconsin spoke Ojibwe in their interactions with Menominee, with other reports indicating that "the Chippewa, Menominee, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sac, and Fox tribes used Ojibwe in intertribal communication...." Some reports indicate that farther west, speakers of non-Algonquian languages such as Ho-Chunk (Winnebago),
Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...
, and
Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language: * Pawnee people * Pawnee language Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States: * Pawnee, Illinois * Pawnee, Kansas * Pawnee, Missouri * Pawnee City, Nebraska ...
spoke Ojibwe as an "acquired language."


Influence on other languages

Michif is a
mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgin ...
that primarily is based upon French and Plains Cree, with some vocabulary from Ojibwe, in addition to phonological influence in Michif-speaking communities where there is a significant Ojibwe influence. In locations such as Turtle Mountain, North Dakota individuals of Ojibwe ancestry now speak Michif and Ojibwe. Ojibwe borrowings have been noted in
Menominee The Menominee (; mez, omǣqnomenēwak meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recog ...
, a related Algonquian language.
Bungi Creole Bungi (also called Bungee, Bungie, Bungay, Bangay, or the Red River Dialect) is a dialect of English with substratal influence from Scottish English, the Orcadian dialect of Scots, Norn, Scottish Gaelic, French, Cree, and Ojibwe (Saulteaux). ...
is an English-based
Creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
spoken in Manitoba by the descendants of "English, Scottish, and Orkney fur traders and their Cree or Saulteaux wives ...". Bungee incorporates elements of Cree; the name may be from the Ojibwe word ''bangii'' "a little bit" or the Cree equivalent but whether there is any other Ojibwe component in Bungee is not documented.


Phonology


Consonants

All dialects of Ojibwe generally have an inventory of 17
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
s. Most dialects have the segment glottal stop in their inventory of consonant phonemes; Severn Ojibwe and the Algonquin dialect have in its place. Some dialects have both segments phonetically, but only one is present in phonological representations. The Ottawa and Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa) have in a small number of affective vocabulary items in addition to regular . Some dialects may have otherwise non-occurring sounds such as in
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s. Obstruent consonants are divided into
lenis In linguistics, fortis and lenis ( and ; Latin for "strong" and "weak"), sometimes identified with tense and lax, are pronunciations of consonants with relatively greater and lesser energy, respectively. English has fortis consonants, such as the ...
and fortis sets, with these features having varying phonological analyses and phonetic realizations cross-dialectally. In some dialects, such as Severn Ojibwe, members of the fortis set are realized as a sequence of followed by a single segment drawn from the set of lenis consonants: . Algonquin Ojibwe is reported as distinguishing fortis and lenis consonants on the basis of voicing, with fortis being voiceless and lenis being voiced. In other dialects fortis consonants are realized as having greater duration than the corresponding lenis consonant, invariably voiceless, "vigorously articulated," and aspirated in certain environments. In some practical orthographies such as the widely-used double vowel system, fortis consonants are written with voiceless symbols: ''p, t, k, ch, s, sh''.For Southwestern Ojibwe, see Nichols, John and Earl Nyholm, 1995; for Ottawa, see Rhodes, Richard, 1985. Lenis consonants have normal duration and are typically voiced intervocalically. Although they may be devoiced at the end or beginning of a word, they are less vigorously articulated than fortis consonants, and are invariably unaspirated. In the double vowel system, lenis consonants are written with voiced symbols: ''b, d, g, j, z, zh''. All dialects of Ojibwe have two nasal consonants and , one labialized
velar approximant The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\. The consonant is not presen ...
, one palatal approximant , and either or .


Vowels

All dialects of Ojibwe have seven oral vowels.
Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, ...
is phonologically contrastive and so is
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
. Although long and short vowels are phonetically distinguished by vowel quality, vowel length is phonologically relevant since the distinction between long and short vowels correlates with the occurrence of vowel syncope, which characterizes the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, as well as
word stress In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
patterns in the language. There are three short vowels and three corresponding long vowels in addition to a fourth long vowel , which lacks a corresponding short vowel. The short vowel typically has phonetic values centring on ; typically has values centring on ; and typically has values centring on . Long is pronounced for many speakers, and is often . Ojibwe has nasal vowels. Some arising predictably by rule in all analyses, and other long nasal vowels are of uncertain phonological status. The latter have been analysed as underlying
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s and/or as predictable and derived by the operation of phonological rules from sequences of a long vowel and /n/ and another segment, typically /j/. Placement of word stress is determined by metrical rules that define a characteristic iambic metrical foot, in which a weak syllable is followed by a strong syllable. A foot consists of a minimum of one syllable and a maximum of two syllables, with each foot containing a maximum of one strong syllable. The structure of the metrical foot defines the domain for relative
prominence In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...
, in which a strong syllable is assigned stress because it is more prominent than the weak member of the foot. Typically, the strong syllable in the
antepenultimate In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is third-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima. Etymology Ul ...
foot is assigned the primary stress. Strong syllables that do not receive main stress are assigned at least secondary stress. In some dialects, metrically weak (unstressed) vowels at the beginning of a word are frequently lost. In the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, all metrically weak vowels are deleted. For example, ''bemisemagak(in)'' (airplane(s), in the Southwestern Ojibwe dialect) is stressed as 'be · mise · magak'' in the singular but as 'be · mise · maga · kin'' in the plural. In some other dialects, metrically weak (unstressed) vowels, especially "a" and "i", are reduced to a schwa and depending on the writer, may be transcribed as "i", "e" or "a". For example, ''anami'egiizhigad'' 'ana · mi'e · gii · zhigad'' (Sunday, literally "prayer day") may be transcribed as ''anama'egiizhigad'' in those dialects.


Grammar

The general grammatical characteristics of Ojibwe are shared across its dialects. The Ojibwe language is polysynthetic, exhibiting characteristics of synthesis and a high morpheme-to-word ratio. Ojibwe is a
head-marking language A language is head-marking if the grammatical marks showing agreement between different words of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads (or nuclei) of phrases, rather than on the modifiers or dependents. Many languages employ both head-marking ...
in which
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
al morphology on nouns and particularly verbs carries significant amounts of grammatical information. Word classes include nouns, verbs, grammatical particles, pronouns,
preverb Although not widely accepted in linguistics, the term preverb is used in Caucasian (including all three families: Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian and Kartvelian), Caddoan, Athabaskan, and Algonquian linguistics to describe certain elem ...
s, and
prenoun ''Prenoun'' is the term for adjective-like prefixes that attach to nouns in Algonquian languages, Japanese, and Korean.Mühlbauer, JeffReduplication in Nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree)'' section 2.2 Algonquian languages For example, in Nêhiyawêwin ...
s. Preferred word orders in a simple transitive sentence are verb-initial, such as verb–object–subject and verb–subject–object. While verb-final orders are dispreferred, all logically possible orders are attested. Complex inflectional and derivational morphology play a central role in Ojibwe grammar. Noun inflection and particularly verb inflection indicate a wide variety of grammatical information, realized through the use of prefixes and suffixes added to word stems. Grammatical characteristics include the following: #
Grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...
, divided into animate and inanimate categories #extensive head-marking on verbs of
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
al information concerning person #
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
# tense # modality #
evidentiality In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particul ...
# negation #a distinction between obviative and proximate third-person, marked on both verbs and nouns. There is a distinction between two different types of third person: the ''proximate'' (the third person deemed more important or in focus) and the ''obviative'' (the third person deemed less important or out of focus). Nouns can be singular or plural in number and either animate or inanimate in gender. Separate personal pronouns exist but are used mainly for emphasis; they distinguish inclusive and exclusive first-person plurals. Verbs, the most complex word class, are inflected for one of three ''orders'' (''indicative'', the default; ''conjunct'', used for participles and in subordinate clauses; and ''imperative'', used with commands), as negative or affirmative, and for the person, number, animacy, and proximate/obviative status of both the subject and object as well as for several different ''modes'' (including the ''dubitative'' and ''preterit'') and tenses.


Vocabulary


Loanwords and neologisms

Although it does contain a few loans from English (e.g. ''gaapii'', "coffee," ) and French (e.g. ''mooshwe'', "handkerchief" (from ''mouchoir''), ''ni-tii'', "tea" (from ''le thé'', "the tea")), in general, the Ojibwe language is notable for its relative lack of borrowing from other languages. Instead, speakers far prefer to create words for new concepts from existing vocabulary. For example in Minnesota ''Ojibwemowin'', "airplane" is ''bemisemagak'', literally "thing that flies" (from ''bimisemagad'', "to fly"), and "battery" is ''ishkode-makakoons'', literally "little fire-box" (from ''ishkode'', "fire," and ''makak'', "box"). Even "coffee" is called ''makade-mashkikiwaaboo'' ("black liquid-medicine") by many speakers, rather than ''gaapii''. These new words vary from region to region, and occasionally from community to community. For example, in Northwest Ontario ''Ojibwemowin'', "airplane" is ''ombaasijigan'', literally "device that gets uplifted by the wind" (from ''ombaasin'', "to be uplifted by the wind") as opposed to the Minnesota's ''bemisemagak''.


Dialect variation

Like any language dialects spanning vast regions, some words that may have had identical meaning at one time have evolved to have different meanings today. For example, ''zhooniyaans'' (literally "small amount ofmoney" and used to refer to coins) specifically means "dime" (10-cent piece) in the United States, but a "quarter" (25-cent piece) in Canada, or ''desabiwin'' (literally "thing to sit upon") means "couch" or "chair" in Canada, but is used to specifically mean a "saddle" in the United States. Cases like "battery" and "coffee" also demonstrate the often great difference between the literal meanings of the individual morphemes in a word, and the overall meaning of the entire word.


Sample vocabulary

Below are some examples of common Ojibwe words. Short List of VAIs:
''onjibaa'' = he/she comes
''izhaa'' = he/she goes
''maajaa'' = he/she departs
''bakade'' = he/she is hungry
''mino'endamo'' = he/she is glad
''zhaaganaashimo'' = he/she speaks English
''biindige'' = he/she comes in
''ojibwemo'' = he/she speaks Ojibwe
''boogidi'' = he/she flatulates
''boogide'' = he/she has flatulence
''aadizooke'' = he/she tells a story
''wiisini'' = he/she is eating
''minikwe'' = he/she drinks
''bimose'' = he/she walks
''bangishin'' = he/she falls
''dagoshin'' = he/she is arriving
''giiwe'' = he/she goes home
''jiibaakwe'' = he/she cooks
''zagaswe'' = he/she smokes
''nibaa'' = he/she sleeps
''giigoonyike'' = he/she is fishing (lit. he/she makes fish)
''gashkendamo'' = he/she is sad
''bimaadizi'' = he/she lives
''gaasikanaabaagawe'' = he/she is thirsty
Short List of Nouns:
''naboob'' = soup
''ikwe'' = woman
''inini'' = man
''ikwezens'' = girl
''gwiiwizens'' = boy
''mitig'' = tree
''asemaa'' = tobacco
''opwaagan'' = pipe
''mandaamin'' = corn
''miskwi'' = blood
''doodoosh'' = breast
''doodooshaaboo'' = milk
''doodooshaaboo-bimide'' = butter
''doodooshaaboowi-miijim'' = cheese
''manoomin'' = wild rice
''omanoominiig'' = Menomonee peoples
''giigoonh'' = fish
''miskwimin'' = raspberry
''gekek'' = hawk
''gookooko'oo'' = owl
''migizi'' = bald eagle
''giniw'' = golden eagle
''bemaadizid'' = person
''bemaadizijig'' = people
''makizin'' = moccasin, shoe
''wiigiwaam'' = wigwam, house


Writing system

There is no standard writing system used for all Ojibwe dialects. Local alphabets have been developed by adapting the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
, usually based on English or
French orthography French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, a ...
. A
syllabic Syllabic may refer to: *Syllable, a unit of speech sound, considered the building block of words **Syllabic consonant, a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable *Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables *Abugida, writing system ...
writing system, not related to English or French writing, is used by some Ojibwe speakers in northern Ontario and Manitoba. Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics are based on the French alphabet with letters organized into syllables. It was used primarily by speakers of Fox, Potawatomi, and Winnebago, but there is some indirect evidence of use by speakers of Southwestern Ojibwe. A widely used Roman character-based writing system is the double vowel system devised by Charles Fiero. Although there is no standard orthography, the double vowel system is used by many Ojibwe language teachers because of its ease of use. A wide range of materials have been published in the system, including a grammar, dictionaries, collections of texts, and pedagogical grammars. In northern Ontario and Manitoba, Ojibwe is most commonly written using the Cree syllabary, a syllabary originally developed by Methodist missionary James Evans around 1840 to write Cree. The syllabic system is based in part on Evans' knowledge of
Pitman's shorthand Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman (1813–1897), who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a phonetic system; the symbols do not represent lette ...
and his prior experience developing a distinctive
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
ic writing system for Ojibwe in southern Ontario.


Double vowel system

The double vowel system uses three short vowels, four long vowels, and eighteen consonants, represented with the following Roman letters:
a aa b ch d e g h ' i ii j k m n o oo p s sh t w y z zh
Dialects typically either have or (the orthographic in most versions) but rarely both. This system is called "double vowel" because the long vowel correspondences to the short vowels , and are written with a doubled value. In this system, the nasal ''ny'' as a final element is instead written . The allowable consonant clusters are , , , , , , , , , , , and .


Sample text and analysis

The sample text, from the Southwestern Ojibwe dialect, is taken, with permission, from the first four lines of ''Niizh Ikwewag'' (Two Women), a story told by Earl Nyholm, on Professor Brian Donovan of Bemidji State University's webpage.
CONJ:conjunct order:Ojibwe grammar#Verbs CONTR:contrastive particle:contrast (linguistics) DESD:desiderative:desiderative EMPH:emphatic particle:markedness


Notable speakers

Notable speakers of Anishinaabemowin include: *
Frederic Baraga Irenaeus Frederic Baraga (June 29, 1797 – January 19, 1868; sl, Irenej Friderik Baraga) was a Slovenian Roman Catholic missionary to the United States and a grammarian by and author of Christian poetry and hymns in Native American langua ...
(19th century Roman Catholic priest, missionary, and first
bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...
of the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Marquette The Diocese of Marquette ( la, Diœcesis Marquettensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church, encompassing all of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The diocese is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical pr ...
, who wrote ''A theoretical and practical grammar of the Otchipwe language'') *
Francis Xavier Pierz Francis Xavier Pierz ( sl, Franc Pirc or ''Franc Pirec''; german: link=no, Franz Pierz) (November 20, 1785 – January 22, 1880) was a Roman Catholic priest and missionary to the Ottawa and Ojibwe Indians in present-day Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontar ...
(19th century Roman Catholic priest , poet, and missionary to the Ojibwe in
Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
,
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, Minnesota, and
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
) * George Copway (chief, missionary, writer, cultural ambassador) * Basil H. Johnston (educator, curator, essayist, cultural ambassador) * Peter Jones (missionary, reverend, chief) * Maude "''Naawakamigookwe''" Kegg (narrator, artist, cultural ambassador) *
Margaret Noodin Margaret A. Noodin () is an American poet and Anishinaabemowin language teacher. She is Professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Education Noodin holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in E ...
(educator, writer) * Jim Northrup (writer) * Keller Paap (educator and author) *
Anton Treuer Anton Treuer is an American academic and author specializing in the Ojibwe language and American Indian studies. He is professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, Minnesota and a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow. Early life and education Anton Treuer ...
(historian, author, linguistic professor, first Ojibwe person to graduate from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
) * Archie Mosay (medicine man and elder, mentor of Anton Treuer) * Anna Gibbs (well-known Ponemah elder, story-teller, and spiritual and ceremonial leader)


Mobile learning apps and online resources

An "Ojibway Language and People" app is available for iPhone, iPad, and other
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
devices. The source code is available for others interested in developing their own application for learning a native language. The Ojibwe People's Dictionary is an online language resource created in collaboration with the University of Minnesota. It is an accessible system that allows users to search in English or Ojibwe and includes voice recordings for many of the 17 000 entries in the collection.


U.S. government attempt to erase native language

In the late 19th century, the United States federal government started its Native American boarding school initiative, which forced Native American children to relocate to government-run boarding schools in an attempt to "acculturate" them into American society. Often placing children in schools that were considerably far from their home communities, these schools attempted to remove any ties children had to their native culture and limit their ability to visit home. Students were forced to speak English, cut their hair, dress in uniform, practice Christianity, and learn of European culture and history. Although the
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of June 18, 1934, or the Wheeler–Howard Act, was U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of American Indians in the United States. It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian ...
mandated that the Native American boarding school program should be phased out, the practice of sending youth to these institutions continued into the 1960s and 1970s. Because children were forced to live away from their home communities, many never had the opportunity to hear and use their native language. Thus, this governmental assimilation effort resulted in a widespread loss of language and culture among indigenous communities, including the Ojibwe people.


Language revitalization

With the remaining population of native speakers declining as older generations die off, many historians consider now an important point in the language's history that will determine if it will proliferate or become extinct. Ojibwe historian Anton Treuer estimates that there are about 1,000 speakers of Ojibwe left in the United States, most residing in Minnesota on the
Red Lake Indian Reservation The Red Lake Indian Reservation (Ojibwe: ''Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga'iganing'') covers in parts of nine counties in northwestern Minnesota, United States. It is made up of numerous holdings but the largest section is an area about Red Lake, i ...
or in Mille Lacs region. Teacher of the language Keller Paap approximates that most fluent speakers in the United States are over 70 years old, making exposure to spoken Ojibwemowin limited in many communities. Ojibwe educators and scholars across the region are working with the remaining elders who speak Ojibwemowin, known as the First Speakers, so as to document and learn the language in hopes to preserve it and pass it on to the next generation of speakers. In recent years, historian and Ojibwe professor Anton Treuer has been recording stories told by about 50 different Ojibwe elders in their native language so as to preserve both the language and pieces of knowledge and history. Alongside his current mentor, a Ponemah elder named Eugene Stillday, he writes the recorded stories in both Ojibwe and translated English. Recently, there has been more of a push toward bringing the Ojibwe language back into more common use, through language classes and programs sponsored by universities, sometimes available to non-students, which are essential to passing on the Ojibwe language. These courses mainly target adults and young adults; however, there are many resources for all age groups, including online games which provide domains for online language use. In the 1980's, The Northern Native-Languages Project was introduced in Ontario to get Indigenous languages such as Ojibwe, to be taught in schools. Years later, the first curriculum was established for the program and it was known as Native Languages 1987. There has also been an increase in published children's literature. The increase in materials published in Ojibwe is essential to increasing the number of speakers. Language revitalization through Ojibwe frameworks also allows for cultural concepts to be conveyed through language. A 2014 study has indicated that learning Indigenous languages such as Ojibwe in school, helps to learn the language and language structure, however, it does not help grow the use of the language outside of a school setting. The most effective way of promoting language is being surrounded by the language, especially in a familial setting. This is difficult to replicate in schools, which is why speaking Ojibwe with family and in one's home life is important in growing language revitalization. Research has been done in Ojibwe communities to prove the important role language revitalization has in treating health concerns. The use of language connects a community through shared views and supports the well-being of said community. Researchers found that language and the notion of culture were intertwined together instead of being separate concepts, and the people who regularly practiced their language and culture were often associated with more positive health outcomes, particularly for psychological health and mental well-being.


Language immersion schools

Despite what they have faced in the American and Canadian Governments' attempt to force Ojibwe into language death through the educational system, many indigenous communities across the Great Lakes region are making efforts towards the Ojibwe
language revival Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
by similarly using the school system. Largely inspired by the success of
Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
immersion schools in Hawaii and
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, similar school programs have been starting throughout Minnesota and
Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
in recent years. One of the most notable programs—developed by Ojibwe educators Lisa LaRonge and Keller Paap—is that of the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School located on the Lac Courte Orielles Reservation in northern Wisconsin. Most students come from English-speaking homes and are learning Ojibwemowin as their second language. At this school, instructors and elders teach the preschoolers to third graders entirely in the Ojibwe language, so that by the time that students complete kindergarten, they know both English and Ojibwe alphabets and writing systems. In the classroom, students generally first become familiar with the language by hearing and speaking it and then advance to reading and writing it as well. They are taught mathematics, reading, social studies, music, and other typical school subjects through the medium of the Ojibwe language so as to increase student's exposure to Ojibwemowin while providing a well-rounded education. In her research study on Ojibwe immersion schools, Ojibwe scholar and educator Mary Hermes suggests that educating through the Ojibwe language may be more culturally meaningful to communities than simply educating about the culture through English. The goal, as with many other language immersion schools across the country, is to meet state-mandated standards for curriculum in the native language. This can be a challenge as public education standards are rigorous with curriculum on complex mathematic and scientific concepts occurring at the second and third grade levels. Ojibwe educators at these schools are constantly working with elders so as to design new ways to say lesser-used words in Ojibwe such as “plastic” or “quotient.” Thus, through these school programs, the language is constantly evolving. Because the Ojibwe language is traditionally oral, it is often difficult for educators to find adequate resources to develop the curriculum. Thus, through these school programs, the language is constantly evolving. Additionally, many of these Ojibwe language immersion schools are considering the question as to whether or not they should include English instruction. Some research suggests that learning to write in one’s first language is important prior to learning a second language. Therefore, many schools include some level of English education at certain grade levels. Along with using the native language, Waadookodaading uses native ways of teaching in its education system. “Ojibwemowin, the Ojibwe language, is a language of action.” Therefore, students are encouraged to learn the language by observing and by doing. For example, each spring the students at Waadookodaading participate in a maple sugar harvest. Older students and elders instruct the younger students on the harvest process, narrating what they are doing in Ojibwemowin as the younger students observe. The younger students are then encouraged to participate as they learn, gathering wood, helping to drill trees, and hauling buckets of sap. Thus, the Ojibwe language is kept alive through indigenous methods of teaching, which emphasizes hands-on experiences, such as the sugar bush harvest. The language is then passed on in a similar manner in which it has been throughout history in that older members of the community—including elders/instructors and older students at the schools—relay their knowledge and experiences to the younger generation. Another notable program is that of the Niigaane Ojibwemowin Language Immersion School on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, which teaches kindergarteners to fifth graders.Whitehead, J. (Producer, writer, & Editor). (2010). First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language
ilm Ilm or ILM may refer to: Acronyms * Identity Lifecycle Manager, a Microsoft Server Product * '' I Love Money,'' a TV show on VH1 * Independent Loading Mechanism, a mounting system for CPU sockets * Industrial Light & Magic, an American motion ...
TPT Originals. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/video/tpt-documentaries-first-speakers-restoring-ojibwe-language/.
Program director Leslie Harper describes the structure of the school in that each classroom is led by an elder who is fluent in Ojibwemowin paired with a trained instructor who also teaches in the native language. Along with typical school subjects like reading and math, children are also taught indigenous skills such as maple sugar harvesting and archery.


See also

* Broken Oghibbeway * Canadian Aboriginal syllabics * List of endangered languages in the United States * Lists of languages * Ojibwe grammar * Ojibwe phonology *
Ojibwe writing systems Ojibwe language, Ojibwe is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous language of North America from the Algonquian languages, Algonquian language family. Ojibwe is one of the largest Native American languages north of Mexico in terms ...


Notes


References

* Bakker, Peter. 1991. "The Ojibwa element in Michif." W. Cowan, ed., ''Papers of the twenty-second Algonquian conference,'' 11–20. Ottawa: Carleton University. * Bakker, Peter. 1996. ''A language of our own: The genesis of Michif, the mixed Cree-French language of the Canadian Métis.'' New York: Oxford University Press. *Bakker, Peter and Anthony Grant. 1996. "Interethnic communication in Canada, Alaska and adjacent areas." Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Muhlhausler, Darrell T. Tyron, eds., ''Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas,'' 1107–1170. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. *Bloomfield, Leonard. 1958. ''Eastern Ojibwa: Grammatical sketch, texts and word list.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. * Bloomfield, Leonard. 1962. ''The Menomini language.'' New Haven: Yale University Press. * awes, Charles E.1982. ''Dictionary English-Ottawa Ottawa-English.'' No publisher given. *Canada
Statistics Canada 2006
Retrieved on March 31, 2009. *Feest, Johanna, and Christian Feest. 1978. "Ottawa." Bruce Trigger, ed., ''The Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15. Northeast,'' 772–786. Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution. * Goddard, Ives. 1978. "Central Algonquian Languages." Bruce Trigger, ed., ''Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15, Northeast,'' 583–587. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. *Goddard, Ives. 1979. "Comparative Algonquian." Lyle Campbell and Marianne Mithun, eds, ''The languages of Native America,'' 70–132. Austin: University of Texas Press. *Goddard, Ives. 1996. "Introduction." Ives Goddard, ed., ''The Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 17. Languages,'' 1–16. Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution. *Kegg, Maude. 1991. Edited and transcribed by John D. Nichols. ''Portage Lake: Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood.'' Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. * Laverdure, Patline and Ida Rose Allard. 1983. ''The Michif dictionary: Turtle Mountain Chippewa Cree.'' Winnipeg, MB: Pemmican Publications. *Nichols, John. 1980. ''Ojibwe morphology.'' PhD dissertation, Harvard University. *Nichols, John. 1995. "The Ojibwe verb in "Broken Oghibbeway." ''Amsterdam Creole Studies'' 12: 1–18. *Nichols, John. 1996. "The Cree syllabary." Peter Daniels and William Bright, eds. ''The world's writing systems,'' 599–611. New York: Oxford University Press. *Nichols, John D. and Leonard Bloomfield, eds. 1991. ''The dog's children. Anishinaabe texts told by Angeline Williams.'' Winnipeg: Publications of the Algonquian Text Society, University of Manitoba. *Nichols, John and Earl Nyholm. 1995. ''A concise dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe.'' St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press. *Ningewance, Patricia. 1993. ''Survival Ojibwe.'' Winnipeg: Mazinaate Press. *Ningewance, Patricia. 1999.
Naasaab izhi-anishinaabebii'igeng: Conference report. A conference to find a common Anishinaabemowin writing system.
' Toronto: Queen's Printer for Ontario. *Ningewance, Patricia. 2004. ''Talking Gookom's language: Learning Ojibwe.'' Lac Seul, ON: Mazinaate Press. *Piggott, Glyne L. 1980. ''Aspects of Odawa morphophonemics.'' New York: Garland. (Published version of PhD dissertation, University of Toronto, 1974) *Rhodes, Richard. 1976. "A preliminary report on the dialects of Eastern Ojibwa – Odawa." W. Cowan, ed., ''Papers of the seventh Algonquian conference,'' 129–156. Ottawa: Carleton University. *Rhodes, Richard. 1982. "Algonquian trade languages." William Cowan, ed., ''Papers of the thirteenth Algonquian conference,'' 1–10. Ottawa: Carleton University. *Rhodes, Richard A. 1985. ''Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. *Rhodes, Richard and Evelyn Todd. 1981. "Subarctic Algonquian languages." June Helm, ed., ''The Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 6. Subarctic,'' 52–66. Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution. *Smith, Huron H. 1932. "Ethnobotany of the Ojibwe Indians." ''Bulletin of the Public Museum of Milwaukee'' 4:327–525. *Todd, Evelyn. 1970. ''A grammar of the Ojibwa language: The Severn dialect.'' PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. *U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population and Housing
''Characteristics of American Indians and Alaska Natives by Tribe and Language: 2000''
Retrieved on March 31, 2009. *Valentine, J. Randolph. 1994. ''Ojibwe dialect relationships.'' PhD dissertation, University of Texas, Austin. *Valentine, J. Randolph. 1998. ''Weshki-bimaadzijig ji-noondmowaad. 'That the young might hear': The stories of Andrew Medler as recorded by Leonard Bloomfield. '' London, ON: The Centre for Teaching and Research of Canadian Native Languages, University of Western Ontario. *Valentine, J. Randolph. 2001. ''Nishnaabemwin Reference Grammar.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press. *Vollom, Judith L. and Thomas M. Vollom. 1994. ''Ojibwemowin. Series 1. '' Second Edition. Ramsey, Minnesota: Ojibwe Language Publishing. *Walker, Willard. 1996. "Native writing systems." Ives Goddard, ed., ''The Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 17. Languages,'' 158–184. Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution.


Further reading

* Beardy, Tom. ''Introductory Ojibwe in Severn dialect. Parts one and two''. Thunder Bay, Ontario : Native Language Instructors' program, Lakehead University, 1996. * Cappel, Constance, editor, "Odawa Language and legends: Andrew J. Blackbird and Raymond Kiogima," Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2006. * Hinton, Leanne and Kenneth Hale. 2001. ''The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice.'' Academic Press. (Hardcover), (Paperback). * Kwayaciiwin Education Resource Centre. 2014. ''ᑭᑎᓯᑭᓯᐍᐏᓂᓇᐣ ihtisiikisiwewinan: Anihshininiimowin Oji-Cree Dictionary (Severn River and Winisk River). Part One : Oji-Cree to English, Part Two : English to Oji-Cree.'' Nichols, John D. et al., editors. Sioux Lookout: Kwayaciiwin Education Resource Centre. * McGregor, Ernest. 1987. ''Algonquin lexicon.'' Maniwaki, QC: River Desert Education Authority. * Mitchell, Mary. 1988. Eds. J. Randolph Valentine and Lisa Valentine. ''Introductory Ojibwe (Severn dialect), Part one.'' Thunder Bay : Native Language Office, Lakehead University. * Mithun, Marianne. 1999. ''The Languages of Native North America''. Cambridge: University Press. * Moose, Lawrence L. et al. 2009. ''Aaniin Ekidong
Aaniin Ekidong: Ojibwe Vocabulary Project
'. St. Paul : Minnesota Humanities Center. * Ningewance, Patricia. 1990. ''Anishinaabemodaa : Becoming a successful Ojibwe eavesdropper.'' Winnipeg : Manitoba Association for Native Languages. * Ningewance, Patricia. 1996. ''Zagataagan – A Northern Ojibwe Dictionary. Volume 1 : English-Ojibwe, Volume 2 : Ojibwe-English.'' Sioux Lookout: Kwayaciiwin Education Resource Centre. * Northrup, Jim, Marcie R. Rendon, and Linda LeGarde Grover. ''Nitaawichige = "to Do Something Skillfully" : Selected Poetry and Prose by Four Anishinaabe Writers''. Duluth, MN : Poetry Harbor, 2002. * Snache, Irene. 2005. ''Ojibwe language dictionary.'' Rama, ON: Mnjikaning Kendaaswin Publishers. * Sugarhead, Cecilia. 1996. ''ᓂᓄᑕᐣ / Ninoontaan / I can hear it: Ojibwe stories from Lansdowne House written by Cecilia Sugarhead. ''Edited, translated and with a glossary by John O'Meara. Winnipeg: Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics. * Toulouse, Isadore. ''Kidwenan, An Ojibwe Language Book''. Munsee-Delaware Nation, ON: Anishinaabe Kendaaswin Pub, 1995. * Treuer, Anton.
Living our language: Ojibwe tales & oral histories
'. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001. * Treuer, Anton.
Ojibwe in Minnesota
'. St. Paul : Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010. * Vizenor, Gerald Robert. ''Summer in the Spring Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories''. American Indian literature and critical studies series, v. 6. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. * Williams, Shirley I. 2002. ''Gdi-nweninaa : Our sound, our voice.'' Peterborough, ON : Neganigwane.


External links


''Noongwa e-Anishinaabemjig'': People Who Speak Anishinaabemowin Today
— hosted at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Language Geek Page on Ojibwe
— Syllabary fonts and keyboard emulators are also available from this site.
Native Languages: A Support Document for the Teaching of Language Patterns, Ojibwe and Cree



Letter Men: Brothers Fight for Ojibwe Language
a story broadcast on
Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to ...
, a
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
broadcast show, interviewing Anton and David Treuer.
Language and Meaning — An Ojibwe Story
a story broadcast on Speaking of Faith, a
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
broadcast show.
Comprehensive list of learning resources for Ojibwe
prepared for the SSILA by Dr. Rand Valentine *
''Gidakiiminaan'' (Our Earth) booklet

First Speakers: Restoring the Ojibwe Language
Documentary produced by Twin Cities Public Television
Ojibwe Stories: Gaganoonididaa
from the
Public Radio Exchange The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is a non-profit web-based platform for digital distribution, review, and licensing of radio programs. The organization is the largest on-demand catalogue of public radio programs available for broadcast and internet ...

Baadwewedamojig project
featuring audio recording made by William Jones between 1903 and 1905.
Back issues of ''Oshkaabewis Native Journal''
published by Bemidji State University


Grammar and Lessons


Rand Valentine's introduction to Ojibwe


— Ojibwe site by "''Weshki-ayaad''"
Native Languages: A Support Document for the Teaching of Language Patters
— basic language patterns for Ojibwe ( Manitoulin Ojibwe/Ottawa "CO" and Lac Seul Ojibwe "WO") and Cree (
Swampy Cree The Swampy Cree people, also known by their autonyms ''Néhinaw'', ''Maskiki Wi Iniwak'', ''Mushkekowuk,'' ''Maškékowak'' or ''Maskekon'' (and therefore also ''Muskegon'' and ''Muskegoes'') or by exonyms including ''West Main Cree,'' ''Lowlan ...
"SC"). * Baraga, Frederic (Bishop) ** (1850).
A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language, the Language Spoken by the Chippewa Indians; Which Is Also Spoken by the Algonquin, Otawa and Potawatami Inidans, with Little Difference, For the Use of Missionaries and Other Persons Living Among the Indians of the Above Named Tribes.
' ** (1878).
A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language for the Use of Missionaries and Other Persons Living Among the Indians
'
Ojibwe numerals


Dictionaries and Wordlists


Ojibwe People's Dictionary
— Online Ojibwe-English dictionary with 8,000+ words, 60,000 audio clips by Ojibwe elders from Minnesota and Ontario, and related images/documents.
Nishnaabemwin : Odawa & Eastern Ojibwe online dictionary
— Contains over 12,000 words from the Ojibwe languages known as Odawa (Ottawa), spoken along the shores of Lake Huron, and Eastern Ojibwe.
Ojibwe Dialect Relations : Lexical Maps
by Dr. J. Randolph Valentine (1995) — a study in differences in vocabulary among different Anishinaabemowin-speaking communities, with accompanying dialectological maps. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ojibwe Language 01 Agglutinative languages Central Algonquian languages Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic First Nations languages in Canada Indigenous languages of Minnesota Indigenous languages of Montana Great Lakes tribal culture Ojibwe Potawatomi Oji-Cree Odawa Algonquin Native American language revitalization