Ojibwe language
Encyclopedia
Ojibwe also called Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language
of the Algonquian
language family. Ojibwe is characterized by a series of dialect
s that have local names and frequently local (non-indigenous) writing system
s. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent, and no standard writing system that covers all dialects. The relative autonomy of the regional dialects of Ojibwe is associated with an absence of linguistic or political unity among Ojibwe-speaking groups
.
The dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Canada
from southwestern Quebec
, through Ontario
, Manitoba
and parts of Saskatchewan
, with outlying communities in Alberta, and in the United States
from Michigan
through Wisconsin
and Minnesota
, with a number of communities in North Dakota
and Montana
, as well as migrant groups in Kansas
and Oklahoma
.
The aggregated dialects of Ojibwe comprise the second most commonly spoken First Nations
language in Canada
(after Cree
), and the fourth most widely spoken in the United States
or Canada
behind Navajo
, Inuit
and Cree.
language family, other Algic languages being Wiyot
and Yurok
. Ojibwe is sometimes described as a Central Algonquian
language, along with Fox
, Cree
, Menominee
, Miami-Illinois, Potawatomi
, and Shawnee
. 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.
for the language is Anishinaabemowin 'speaking the native language' (Anishinaabe 'native person,' verb suffix –mo ‘speak a language,’ suffix –win ‘nominalizer’), with varying spellings and pronunciations depending upon dialect. Some speakers use the term Ojibwemowin. The general term in the Severn Ojibwe dialect is Anihshininiimowin, although Anishinaabemowin is widely recognized by Severn speakers. Some speakers of Saulteaux Ojibwe
refer to their language as Nakawemowin. The Ottawa dialect
is sometimes referred to as Daawaamwin, although the general designation is Nishnaabemwin, with the latter term also applied to Jibwemwin or Eastern Ojibwe
. 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.
are frequently viewed as being more closely related to each than to other Algonquian languages. Ojibwe and Potawatomi have been proposed as likely candidates for forming a genetic subgroup within Proto-Algonquian, 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." 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 attributed to diffusion
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.”
Ojibwe communities are found in Canada
from southwestern Quebec
, through Ontario
, southern Manitoba
and parts of southern Saskatchewan
, and in the United States
from northern Michigan
through northern Wisconsin
and northern Minnesota
, with a number of communities in northern North Dakota
and northern Montana
. 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
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 and the 2006 Canadian census
. The Ojibwe language is reported as spoken by 8,791 total people in the United States of which 7,355 are Native Americans and by as many as 47,740 in Canada
, making it one of the largest Algic languages by numbers of speakers.
of dialectal varieties since … every dialect is at least partly intelligible to the speakers of the neighboring dialects." The degree of mutually 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 these three dialects “...show many distinct features, which suggest periods of relative isolation from other varieties of Ojibwe.” 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 “...could be said to consist of several languages...," suggesting analysis of Ojibwe as a linguistic subgroup.
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
. 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.”
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
to Lake Winnipeg
, and from as far south as Ohio
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 Huron
(also called Wyandot), an Iroquoian language, was also used as a trade language east of the Great Lakes by speakers of the Nipissing and Algonquin
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 eastern end of the Upper Peninsula, the area between Lake Erie
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. 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, could also speak Ojibwe, but Ojibwe speakers did not speak the other languages. It is known that some speakers of Menominee also speak Ojibwe, and that this 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 indicated that speakers of Menominee
, another Algonquian language, used Ojibwe as a lingua franca. Other reports from the 18th century and early 19th century indicate that speakers of the unrelated Siouan language
Ho-Chunk (Winnebago)
also used Ojibwe when dealing with Europeans and others. 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 further to the west speakers of non-Algonquian languages such as Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Iowa
, and Pawnee
spoke Ojibwe as an ‘acquired language.’
era, a pidgin
form of Ojibwe known as Broken Oghibbeway was used by travellers and traders in the Wisconsin and Mississippi River
valleys. Data in the language were collected during the 1820s at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
by Edwin James, a physician and naturalist, who also gave the pidgin its name. It has been described as “…a language with a restricted vocabulary drawn from the Ottawa dialect of Ojibwe with a few words from Fox (Mesquakie)
, another Algonquian language of the region, and restructured and reduced, but not absent, Ojibwe morphology.”
James recognized that “Broken Oghibbeway” was different from the variety of Ojibwe spoken in Wisconsin (which at that time included Minnesota). He noted that it “…is of the dialect used by the traders and the people of mixed blood in speaking with the Menomonies and Winnebagoes also many of the Sioux Saxes and Foxes.”
Although “Broken Oghibbeway” retains many aspects of the complex inflectional morphology that characterizes Ojibwe, it is nonetheless simplified and restructured, with reductions in the treatment of transitivity
and gender
, with simplification of the system of personal
prefixes used on verbs, loss of the negative suffix that occurs on verbs, and loss of inflectional suffixes that indicate grammatical objects
.
is a mixed language
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 only Michif and not Ojibwe.
Ojibwe borrowings have been noted in Menominee
, a related Algonquian language
.
Bungee
is the name given to a dialect of English 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.
s. Most dialects have the segment glottal stop
/ʔ/ in their inventory of consonant phonemes; Severn Ojibwe and the Algonquin dialect have /h/ in its place. Some dialects have both segments phonetically, but only one is present in phonological representations
. The Ottawa and Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa) have /h/ in a small number of affective vocabulary items in addition to regular /ʔ/. Some dialects may have otherwise non-occurring sounds such as /f, l, r/ in loanword
s.
Obstruent
consonants are divided into lenis
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 /h/ followed by a single segment drawn from the set of lenis consonants: /p t k tʃ s ʃ/. 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.
Lenis consonants have normal duration; are typically voiced intervocalically, although they may be devoiced at the end or beginning of a word; are less vigorously articulated than fortis consonants; and are invariably unaspirated. In the Double Vowel practical orthography, lenis consonants are written with voiced symbols: b, d, g, j, z, zh.
All dialects of Ojibwe have two nasal consonant
s /m/ and /n/; one labialized velar approximant /w/; one palatal approximant
/j/; and one of glottal stop /ʔ/ or /h/.
All dialects of Ojibwe have seven oral vowels
. Vowel length
is phonologically contrastive
, hence phonemic
. Although the long and short vowels are phonetically distinguished by vowel quality, recognition of vowel length in phonological representations is required, as the distinction between long
and short vowel
s is essential for the operation of the metrical
rule of vowel syncope that characterizes the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, as well as for the rules that determine word stress
. There are three short vowels, /i a o/; and three corresponding long vowels, /iː aː oː/, in addition to a fourth long vowel /eː/, which lacks a corresponding short vowel. The short vowel /i/ typically has phonetic values centring on [ɪ]; /a/ typically has values centring on [ə]~[ʌ]; and /o/ typically has values centring on [o]~[ʊ]. Long /oː/ is pronounced [uː] for many speakers, and /eː/ is for many [ɛː].
Ojibwe has nasal vowel
s; some arise predictably by rule in all analyses, and other long nasal vowels are of uncertain phonological status. The latter have been analysed both as underlying phoneme
s, and also as predictable, that is derived by the operation of phonological rules from sequences of a long vowel followed by /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 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 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.
and a high morpheme
-to-word ratio. Ojibwe is a head-marking language
in which inflection
al morphology on nouns and particularly verbs carries significant amounts of grammatical information.
Word classes include noun
s, verb
s, grammatical particle
s, pronoun
s, preverb
s, and prenoun
s. Preferred word order
s in a simple transitive
sentence are verb-initial, such as V(erb)–O(bject)–S(ubject) and VSO. 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 prefix
es and suffix
es added to word stem
s. Grammatical characteristics include the following:
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, and one of two genders, animate
or inanimate
. Separate personal pronoun
s exist, but are usually used for emphasis; they distinguish inclusive and exclusive first person plurals.
Verbs constitute the most complex word class. Verbs 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.
Cases like "battery" and "coffee" also demonstrate the often great difference between the literal meanings of the individual morpheme
s in a word, and the overall meaning of the entire word.
Short List of VAIs:
onjibaa = he/she comes
izhaa = he/she goes
maajaa = he/she departs
pikade = 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
bangishino = he/she falls
digoshino = 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
mitigo = tree
asemaa = tobacco
opwaagan = pipe
mandaamin = corn
manoomin = wild rice
miskwi = blood
doodooshaaboo = milk
doodoosh = breast
doodooshaaboo-bimide = butter
omanoominiig = Menomonee peoples
giigoonh = fish
miskwimin = raspberry
gekek = hawk
gookookoo'oo = owl
migizi = bald eagle
giniw = golden eagle
bemaadizid = person
bemaadizijig = people
makizin = mocassin, shoe
wiigiwaam = wigwam, house
or French
writing systems. A syllabic writing system not related to English or French writing is used by some Ojibwe speakers in northern Ontario and Manitoba. The Great Lakes Algonquian syllabary is based upon the French alphabet, with letters organized into syllables. It was primarily used by speakers of Fox
, Potawatomi, and Winnebago, but there is 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 this 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 in order to write Cree. The syllabic system is based in part on Evans' knowledge of Pitman shorthand and his prior experience developing a distinctive alphabet
ic writing system for Ojibwe in southern Ontario.
Dialects typically either have /h/ or /ʔ/ (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 as "nh." The allowable consonant clusters are , , , , , , , , , , and
dialect, is taken, with permission, from the first four lines of Niizh Ikwewag, a story originally told by Earl Nyholm, on Professor Brian Donovan of Bemidji State University's webpage.
Abbreviations:
Grammar and Lessons
Dictionaries and Wordlists
Indigenous language
An indigenous language or autochthonous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples but has been reduced to the status of a minority language. This language would be from a linguistically distinct community that has been settled in the area for many generations...
of the Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
language family. Ojibwe is characterized by a series of dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s that have local names and frequently local (non-indigenous) writing system
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
s. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent, and no standard writing system that covers all dialects. The relative autonomy of the regional dialects of Ojibwe is associated with an absence of linguistic or political unity among Ojibwe-speaking groups
Ojibwa
The Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
.
The dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
from southwestern Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, through Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
and parts of Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
, with outlying communities in Alberta, and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
through Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, with a number of communities in North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
and Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, as well as migrant groups in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
and Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
.
The aggregated dialects of Ojibwe comprise the second most commonly spoken First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
language in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
(after Cree
Cree language
Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...
), and the fourth most widely spoken in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
or Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
behind Navajo
Navajo language
Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...
, Inuit
Inuit language
The Inuit language is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and Russian Far East, particularly the Diomede Islands, but is severely endangered in Russia today and...
and Cree.
Classification
The Algonquian language family of which Ojibwe is a member is itself a member of the AlgicAlgic languages
The Algic languages are an indigenous language family of North America. Most Algic languages belong to the Algonquian family, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains to Atlantic Canada...
language family, other Algic languages being Wiyot
Wiyot language
Wiyot is an extinct Algic language, formerly spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay, California. The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962...
and Yurok
Yurok language
Yurok is a moribund Algic language. It is the traditional language of the Yurok tribe of Del Norte County and Humboldt County on the far North Coast of California, U.S., most of whom now speak English...
. Ojibwe is sometimes described as a Central Algonquian
Central Algonquian languages
The Central Algonquian languages are commonly grouped together as a subgroup of the larger Algonquian family, itself a member of the Algic family. Though this grouping is often encountered in the literature, it is an areal grouping rather than a genetic one...
language, along with Fox
Fox language
Fox is an Algonquian language, spoken by around 1000 Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States and in northern Mexico...
, Cree
Cree language
Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...
, Menominee
Menominee language
The Menominee language is an Algonquian language originally spoken by the Menominee people of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. It is still spoken on the Menominee Nation lands in Northern Wisconsin in the United States....
, Miami-Illinois, Potawatomi
Potawatomi language
Potawatomi is a Central Algonquian language and is spoken around the Great Lakes in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Kansas in the United States, and in southern Ontario in Canada, 1300 Potawatomi people, all elderly...
, and Shawnee
Shawnee language
The Shawnee language is a Central Algonquian language spoken in parts of central and northeastern Oklahoma by only around 200 Shawnee, making it an endangered language. It was originally spoken in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania...
. Central Algonquian is a geographical term of convenience rather than a genetic subgroup
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
, 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 designationExonym and endonym
In ethnolinguistics, an endonym or autonym is a local name for a geographical feature, and an exonym or xenonym is a foreign language name for it...
for the language is Anishinaabemowin 'speaking the native language' (Anishinaabe 'native person,' verb suffix –mo ‘speak a language,’ suffix –win ‘nominalizer’), with varying spellings and pronunciations depending upon dialect. Some speakers use the term Ojibwemowin. The general term in the Severn Ojibwe dialect is Anihshininiimowin, although Anishinaabemowin is widely recognized by Severn speakers. Some speakers of Saulteaux Ojibwe
Western Ojibwa language
Western Ojibwa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, a member of the Algonquian language family. It is spoken by the Saulteaux, a sub-Nation of the Ojibwe people, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada westward from Lake Winnipeg...
refer to their language as Nakawemowin. The Ottawa dialect
Ottawa language
Ottawa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, spoken by the Ottawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma...
is sometimes referred to as Daawaamwin, although the general designation is Nishnaabemwin, with the latter term also applied to Jibwemwin or Eastern Ojibwe
Eastern Ojibwa language
Eastern Ojibwe is a dialect of the Ojibwe language spoken north of Lake Ontario and east of Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. Eastern Ojibwe-speaking communities include Rama and Curve Lake. Ojibwe is an Algonquian language....
. 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 of Ojibwe and Potawatomi
Ojibwe and PotawatomiPotawatomi language
Potawatomi is a Central Algonquian language and is spoken around the Great Lakes in Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as in Kansas in the United States, and in southern Ontario in Canada, 1300 Potawatomi people, all elderly...
are frequently viewed as being more closely related to each than to other Algonquian languages. Ojibwe and Potawatomi have been proposed as likely candidates for forming a genetic subgroup within Proto-Algonquian, 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." 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 attributed to diffusion
Sprachbund
A Sprachbund – also known as a linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related...
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
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
from southwestern Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, through Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, southern Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
and parts of southern Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
, and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from northern Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
through northern Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and northern Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, with a number of communities in northern North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
and northern Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. Groups of speakers of the Ottawa dialect migrated to Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
and Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
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
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
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 and the 2006 Canadian census
Canada 2006 Census
The Canada 2006 Census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 16, 2006. The next census following will be the 2011 Census. Canada's total population enumerated by the 2006 census was 31,612,897...
. The Ojibwe language is reported as spoken by 8,791 total people in the United States of which 7,355 are Native Americans and by as many as 47,740 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, making it one of the largest Algic languages by numbers of speakers.
| Language | Canada | United States | Total (by speakers) | Total ethnic population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Algonquin | 2,680 | 0 | 2,680 | 8,266 |
| Oji-Cree | 12,600 | 0 | 12,600 | 12,600 |
| Ojibwe | 24,896 | 8,355 | 33,251 | 219,711 |
| Ottawa | 7,564 | 436 | 8,000 | 60,000 |
| Total (by Country) | 47,740 | 8,791 | 56,531 | 300,577 |
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 continuumDialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
of dialectal varieties since … every dialect is at least partly intelligible to the speakers of the neighboring dialects." The degree of mutually 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 these three dialects “...show many distinct features, which suggest periods of relative isolation from other varieties of Ojibwe.” 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 “...could be said to consist of several languages...," suggesting analysis of Ojibwe as a linguistic subgroup.
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)
Western Ojibwa language
Western Ojibwa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, a member of the Algonquian language family. It is spoken by the Saulteaux, a sub-Nation of the Ojibwe people, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada westward from Lake Winnipeg...
, Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa)
Chippewa language
Chippewa is an Algonquian language spoken from upper Michigan westward to North Dakota in the United States. It represents the southern component of the Ojibwe language. Its ISO-3 designation is "ciw".Chippewa is part of the Algonquian language family and an indigenous language of North America...
, Northwestern Ojibwe
Northwestern Ojibwa language
Northwestern Ojibwe is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, spoken in Ontario and Manitoba, Canada. Ojibwe is a member of the Algonquian language family.-References:...
, Severn Ojibwe (Oji-Cree), Ottawa (Odawa)
Ottawa language
Ottawa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, spoken by the Ottawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma...
, Eastern Ojibwe
Eastern Ojibwa language
Eastern Ojibwe is a dialect of the Ojibwe language spoken north of Lake Ontario and east of Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. Eastern Ojibwe-speaking communities include Rama and Curve Lake. Ojibwe is an Algonquian language....
, and Algonquin
Algonquin language
Algonquin is either a distinct Algonquian language closely related to the Ojibwe language or a particularly divergent Ojibwe dialect. It is spoken, alongside French and to some extent English, by the Algonquin First Nations of Quebec and Ontario...
. 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
Central Ojibwa language
Central Ojibwa is an Algonquian language spoken in Ontario, Canada from Lake Nipigon in the west to Lake Nipissing in the east.-References:*...
, 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
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
or trade languages in the circum-Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
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
Gulf of Saint Lawrence
The Gulf of Saint Lawrence , the world's largest estuary, is the outlet of North America's Great Lakes via the Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean...
to Lake Winnipeg
Lake Winnipeg
Lake Winnipeg is a large, lake in central North America, in the province of Manitoba, Canada, with its southern tip about north of the city of Winnipeg...
, and from as far south as Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
to Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...
.
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 Huron
Wyandot language
Wyandot is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known variously as Wyandot, Wyandotte, Wendat, or Huron. It was last spoken primarily in Oklahoma and Quebec...
(also called Wyandot), an Iroquoian language, was also used as a trade language east of the Great Lakes by speakers of the Nipissing and Algonquin
Algonquin language
Algonquin is either a distinct Algonquian language closely related to the Ojibwe language or a particularly divergent Ojibwe dialect. It is spoken, alongside French and to some extent English, by the Algonquin First Nations of Quebec and Ontario...
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
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, located entirely within Ontario, Canada...
, the Nipissing dialect was a trade language. In the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula, the area between Lake Erie
Lake Erie
Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...
and Lake Huron
Lake Huron
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the larger portion of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is bounded on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States...
, and along the north shore of Georgian Bay, the Ottawa dialect served as a trade language. In the area south of Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
and west of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
Southwestern Ojibwe was the trade language. 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, could also speak Ojibwe, but Ojibwe speakers did not speak the other languages. It is known that some speakers of Menominee also speak Ojibwe, and that this 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 indicated that speakers of Menominee
Menominee language
The Menominee language is an Algonquian language originally spoken by the Menominee people of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. It is still spoken on the Menominee Nation lands in Northern Wisconsin in the United States....
, another Algonquian language, used Ojibwe as a lingua franca. Other reports from the 18th century and early 19th century indicate that speakers of the unrelated Siouan language
Siouan languages
The Western Siouan languages, also called Siouan proper or simply Siouan, are a Native American language family of North America, and the second largest indigenous language family in North America, after Algonquian...
Ho-Chunk (Winnebago)
Winnebago language
The Winnebago language is the language of the Ho-Chunk tribe of Native Americans in the United States. The language is part of the Siouan language family, and is closely related to the languages of the Iowa, Missouri, and Oto...
also used Ojibwe when dealing with Europeans and others. Other reports indicate that agents of the American government at Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...
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 further to the west speakers of non-Algonquian languages such as Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Iowa
Chiwere language
Chiwere is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples, who originated in the Great Lakes region but later moved throughout the midwest and plains. The language is closely related to Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago...
, and Pawnee
Pawnee language
The Pawnee language is a Caddoan language spoken by some Pawnee Native Americans now located in north central Oklahoma. Their traditional historic lands were along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. Once the language of thousands of Pawnees, today Pawnee is spoken by a shrinking number of...
spoke Ojibwe as an ‘acquired language.’
Broken Oghibbeway
During the fur tradeFur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...
era, a pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
form of Ojibwe known as Broken Oghibbeway was used by travellers and traders in the Wisconsin and Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
valleys. Data in the language were collected during the 1820s at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census. Its Zip Code is 53821....
by Edwin James, a physician and naturalist, who also gave the pidgin its name. It has been described as “…a language with a restricted vocabulary drawn from the Ottawa dialect of Ojibwe with a few words from Fox (Mesquakie)
Fox language
Fox is an Algonquian language, spoken by around 1000 Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States and in northern Mexico...
, another Algonquian language of the region, and restructured and reduced, but not absent, Ojibwe morphology.”
James recognized that “Broken Oghibbeway” was different from the variety of Ojibwe spoken in Wisconsin (which at that time included Minnesota). He noted that it “…is of the dialect used by the traders and the people of mixed blood in speaking with the Menomonies and Winnebagoes also many of the Sioux Saxes and Foxes.”
Although “Broken Oghibbeway” retains many aspects of the complex inflectional morphology that characterizes Ojibwe, it is nonetheless simplified and restructured, with reductions in the treatment of transitivity
Transitivity (grammatical category)
In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take...
and gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, with simplification of the system of personal
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
prefixes used on verbs, loss of the negative suffix that occurs on verbs, and loss of inflectional suffixes that indicate grammatical objects
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
.
Ojibwe influence on other languages
MichifMichif language
Michif is the language of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations women and fur trade workers of European ancestry...
is a mixed language
Mixed language
A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source...
that primarily is based upon French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Plains Cree
Plains Cree language
Plains Cree is a dialect of the Algonquian language, Cree, which is the most common Canadian indigenous language. Plains Cree is sometimes considered a dialect of the Cree-Montagnais language, or sometimes a dialect of the Cree language, distinct from the Montagnais language...
, 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
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians is a Native American tribe of Ojibwa and Métis peoples, based on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota. The tribe has 30,000 enrolled members...
individuals of Ojibwe ancestry now speak only Michif and not Ojibwe.
Ojibwe borrowings have been noted in Menominee
Menominee language
The Menominee language is an Algonquian language originally spoken by the Menominee people of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. It is still spoken on the Menominee Nation lands in Northern Wisconsin in the United States....
, a related Algonquian language
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
.
Bungee
Bungee language
Bungi is a creole of Scottish English strongly influenced by Orcadian, Gaelic, Cree and Ojibwe, and spoken by the Red River Métis in present-day Manitoba, Canada...
is the name given to a dialect of English spoken in Manitoba by the descendants of "English, Scottish, and Orkney fur traders and their Cree or Saulteaux wives...". Bungee incorporates elements of Cree
Cree language
Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...
; 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
All dialects of Ojibwe generally have an inventory of seventeen consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s. Most dialects have the segment glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
/ʔ/ in their inventory of consonant phonemes; Severn Ojibwe and the Algonquin dialect have /h/ in its place. Some dialects have both segments phonetically, but only one is present in phonological representations
Underlying representation
In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology, the underlying representation or underlying form of a word or morpheme is the abstract form the word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it. If more rules apply to the same form, they can apply...
. The Ottawa and Southwestern Ojibwe (Chippewa) have /h/ in a small number of affective vocabulary items in addition to regular /ʔ/. Some dialects may have otherwise non-occurring sounds such as /f, l, r/ in loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s.
Obstruent
Obstruent
An obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract, such as [k], [d͡ʒ] and [f]. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants....
consonants are divided into lenis
Fortis and lenis
In linguistics, fortis and lenis are terms generally used to refer to groups of consonants that are produced with greater and lesser energy, respectively, such as in energy applied, articulation, etc....
and fortis
Fortis and lenis
In linguistics, fortis and lenis are terms generally used to refer to groups of consonants that are produced with greater and lesser energy, respectively, such as in energy applied, articulation, etc....
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 /h/ followed by a single segment drawn from the set of lenis consonants: /p t k tʃ s ʃ/. Algonquin Ojibwe is reported as distinguishing fortis and lenis consonants on the basis of voicing
Voice (phonetics)
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
, with fortis being voiceless and lenis being voiced. In other dialects fortis consonants are realized as having greater duration
Length (phonetics)
In phonetics, length or quantity is a feature of sounds that are distinctively longer than other sounds. There are long vowels as well as long consonants .Many languages do not have distinctive length...
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.
Lenis consonants have normal duration; are typically voiced intervocalically, although they may be devoiced at the end or beginning of a word; are less vigorously articulated than fortis consonants; and are invariably unaspirated. In the Double Vowel practical orthography, lenis consonants are written with voiced symbols: b, d, g, j, z, zh.
All dialects of Ojibwe have two nasal consonant
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
s /m/ and /n/; one labialized velar approximant /w/; one palatal approximant
Palatal approximant
The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is '...
/j/; and one of glottal stop /ʔ/ or /h/.
All dialects of Ojibwe have seven oral vowels
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
. Vowel length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
is phonologically contrastive
Contrastive distribution
Contrastive distribution in linguistics, as opposed to complementary distribution or free variation, is the relationship between two different elements, where both elements are found in the same environment with a change in meaning.-Phonology:...
, hence phonemic
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
. Although the long and short vowels are phonetically distinguished by vowel quality, recognition of vowel length in phonological representations is required, as the distinction between long
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
and short vowel
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
s is essential for the operation of the metrical
Metrical phonology
Metrical phonology is a theory of stress or linguistic prominence. The innovative feature of this theory is that the prominence of a unit is defined relative to other units in the same phrase...
rule of vowel syncope that characterizes the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, as well as for the rules that determine word stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
. There are three short vowels, /i a o/; and three corresponding long vowels, /iː aː oː/, in addition to a fourth long vowel /eː/, which lacks a corresponding short vowel. The short vowel /i/ typically has phonetic values centring on [ɪ]; /a/ typically has values centring on [ə]~[ʌ]; and /o/ typically has values centring on [o]~[ʊ]. Long /oː/ is pronounced [uː] for many speakers, and /eː/ is for many [ɛː].
Ojibwe has nasal vowel
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
s; some arise predictably by rule in all analyses, and other long nasal vowels are of uncertain phonological status. The latter have been analysed both as underlying phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s, and also as predictable, that is derived by the operation of phonological rules from sequences of a long vowel followed by /n/ and another segment, typically /j/.
Placement of word stress is determined by metrical rules that define a characteristic iambic metrical Foot
Metrical phonology
Metrical phonology is a theory of stress or linguistic prominence. The innovative feature of this theory is that the prominence of a unit is defined relative to other units in the same phrase...
, in which a Weak
Metrical phonology
Metrical phonology is a theory of stress or linguistic prominence. The innovative feature of this theory is that the prominence of a unit is defined relative to other units in the same phrase...
syllable is followed by a Strong
Metrical phonology
Metrical phonology is a theory of stress or linguistic prominence. The innovative feature of this theory is that the prominence of a unit is defined relative to other units in the same phrase...
syllable. A Foot consists of a minimum of one syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
, 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
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
, 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 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.
Grammar
The general grammatical characteristics of Ojibwe are shared across its dialects. The Ojibwe language is polysynthetic, exhibits characteristics of synthesisSynthetic language
In linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language...
and a high morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
-to-word ratio. Ojibwe is a head-marking language
Head-marking language
A head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the...
in which inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al morphology on nouns and particularly verbs carries significant amounts of grammatical information.
Word classes include noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, grammatical particle
Grammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
s, pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s, preverb
Preverb
Although not widely accepted in linguistics, the term preverb is used in Caucasian , Caddoan, Athabaskan, and Algonquian linguistics to describe certain elements prefixed to verbs.Theoretically, any prefix could be called a preverbal element...
s, and prenoun
Prenoun
Prenoun is the term for adjective-like prefixes that attach to nouns in Algonquian languages and the Korean Language. -Algonquian Languages:...
s. Preferred word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
s in a simple transitive
Transitivity (grammatical category)
In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take...
sentence are verb-initial, such as V(erb)–O(bject)–S(ubject) and VSO. While verb-final orders are dispreferred, all logically possible orders are attested.
Complex inflectional and derivational
Derivational morphology
Derivational morphology changes the meaning of words by applying derivations. Derivation is the combination of a word stem with a morpheme, which forms a new word, which is often of a different class...
morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
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 prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es and suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es added to word stem
Word stem
In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
s. Grammatical characteristics include the following:
- genderGrammatical genderGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, divided into animate and inanimate categories - extensive head-markingHead-marking languageA head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the...
on verbs of inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al information concerning personGrammatical personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... - numberGrammatical numberIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
- tenseGrammatical tenseA tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
- modalityLinguistic modalityIn linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...
- evidentialityEvidentialityIn linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and/or what kind of evidence exists. An evidential is the particular grammatical element that indicates evidentiality...
- 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
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
, 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, and one of two genders, animate
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
or inanimate
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
. Separate personal pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s exist, but are usually used for emphasis; they distinguish inclusive and exclusive first person plurals.
Verbs constitute the most complex word class. Verbs 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.
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 of] money" 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 morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s 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
pikade = 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
bangishino = he/she falls
digoshino = 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
mitigo = tree
asemaa = tobacco
opwaagan = pipe
mandaamin = corn
manoomin = wild rice
miskwi = blood
doodooshaaboo = milk
doodoosh = breast
doodooshaaboo-bimide = butter
omanoominiig = Menomonee peoples
giigoonh = fish
miskwimin = raspberry
gekek = hawk
gookookoo'oo = owl
migizi = bald eagle
giniw = golden eagle
bemaadizid = person
bemaadizijig = people
makizin = mocassin, shoe
wiigiwaam = wigwam, house
Writing system
There is no standard writing system used for all Ojibwe dialects. Local writing systems have been developed by adapting the Roman alphabet, usually from EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
or French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
writing systems. A syllabic writing system not related to English or French writing is used by some Ojibwe speakers in northern Ontario and Manitoba. The Great Lakes Algonquian syllabary is based upon the French alphabet, with letters organized into syllables. It was primarily used by speakers of Fox
Fox language
Fox is an Algonquian language, spoken by around 1000 Fox, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations in the Midwestern United States and in northern Mexico...
, Potawatomi, and Winnebago, but there is 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 this 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
Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
Canadian Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families....
, a syllabary
Syllabary
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...
originally developed by Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
missionary James Evans around 1840 in order to write Cree. The syllabic system is based in part on Evans' knowledge of Pitman shorthand and his prior experience developing a distinctive alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
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 /h/ or /ʔ/ (the orthographic <'> in most versions) but rarely both.
This system is called "Double Vowel" because the long vowel correspondences to the short vowels
Sample text and analysis
The sample text, from the Southwestern OjibweChippewa language
Chippewa is an Algonquian language spoken from upper Michigan westward to North Dakota in the United States. It represents the southern component of the Ojibwe language. Its ISO-3 designation is "ciw".Chippewa is part of the Algonquian language family and an indigenous language of North America...
dialect, is taken, with permission, from the first four lines of Niizh Ikwewag, a story originally told by Earl Nyholm, on Professor Brian Donovan of Bemidji State University's webpage.
Text
- Aabiding gii-ayaawag niizh ikwewag: mindimooyenh, odaanisan bezhig.
- Iwidi Chi-achaabaaning akeyaa gii-onjibaawag.
- Inashke naa mewinzha gii-aawan, mii eta go imaa sa wiigiwaaming gaa-taawaad igo.
- Mii dash iwapii, aabiding igo gii-awi-bagida'waawaad, giigoonyan wii-amwaawaad.
Translation
- Once there were two women: an old lady, and one of her daughters.
- They were from over there towards IngerInger, MinnesotaInger is an unincorporated community in Itasca County, Minnesota, United States, along the Bowstring River of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation....
. - See now, it was long ago; they just lived there in a wigwam.
- And at that time, once they went net-fishing; they intended to eat fish.
Gloss
| Aabiding | gii-ayaawag | niizh | ikwewag: | mindimooyenh, | odaanisan | bezhig. | |||||
| aabiding | gii- | ayaa | -wag | niizh | ikwe | -wag | mindimooyenh, | o- | daanis | -an | bezhig. |
| once | PAST- | be in a certain place | -3PL | two | woman | -3PL | old woman, | 3SG.POSS- | daughter | -OBV | one. |
| Once | they were in a certain place | two | women: | old woman, | her daughter | one. | |||||
| Iwidi | Chi-achaabaaning | akeyaa | gii-onjibaawag. | ||||
| iwidi | chi- | achaabaan | -ing | akeyaa | gii- | onjibaa | -wag. |
| over there | big- | bowstring | -LOC | that way | PAST- | come from | -3PL. |
| Over there | by Inger (lit: by Big-Bowstring [River]) |
that way | they came from there. | ||||
| Inashke | naa | mewinzha | gii-aawan, | mii eta go | imaa | sa | wiigiwaaming | gaa-taawaad | igo. | ||||||
| inashke | naa | mewinzha | gii- | aawan | mii | eta | go | imaa | sa | wiigiwaam | -ing | gaa- | daa | -waad | igo. |
| look | now | long ago | PAST- | be | so | only | EMPH | there | EMPH | wigwam | -LOC | PAST.CONJ- | live | -3PL.CONJ | EMPH. |
| Look | now | long ago | it was, | only | there | so | in a wigwam | that they lived | just then. | ||||||
| Mii dash | iwapii, | aabiding | igo | gii-awi-bagida'waawaad, | giigoonyan | wii-amwaawaad. | ||||||||
| mii | dash | iw- | -apii | aabiding | igo | gii- | awi- | bagida'waa | -waad, | giigoonh | -yan | wii- | amw | -aawaad. |
| it is that | CONTR | that- | -then | once | EMPH | PAST- | go and- | fish with a net | -3PL.CONJ | fish | -OBV | DESD- | eat | -3PL/OBV.CONJ |
| And then | then, | once | just then | that they went and fished with a net | those fish | that they are going to eat those | ||||||||
Abbreviations:
| 3 | third person |
| SG | singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
| PL | plural Plural In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one... |
| POSS | possessive Possession (linguistics) Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other .... |
| OBV | obviative |
| LOC | locative |
| EMPH | emphatic particle Markedness Markedness is a specific kind of asymmetry relationship between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one... |
| CONJ | conjunct order |
| CONTR | contrastive particle Contrast (linguistics) In semantics, contrast is a relationship between two discourse segments. Contrast is often overtly marked by markers such as but or however, such as in the following examples:# It's raining, but I am not taking an umbrella.... |
| DESD | desiderative Desiderative In linguistics, a desiderative form is one that has the meaning of "wanting to X". Desiderative forms are often verbs, derived from a more basic verb through a process of morphological derivation.-Sanskrit:... |
Well-known speakers of Anishinaabemowin
- The 19th century missionary bishop Frederic BaragaFrederic BaragaFrederic Baraga, Servant of God was a Slovene American Roman Catholic missionary, bishop, and grammarian.-Early life:Frederic Baraga was born as Friderik Irenej Baraga in the manor house at Mala Vas no...
, who wrote A theoretical and practical grammar of the Otchipwe language - Jim Clark (elder, narrator)
- George CopwayGeorge CopwayGeorge Copway was a Mississaugas Ojibwa writer, lecturer, and advocate of Native Americans. His Ojibwa name was Kah-Ge-Ga-Gah-Bowh , meaning "He Who Stands Forever"....
(chief, missionary, writer, cultural ambassador) - Basil H. JohnstonBasil H. JohnstonBasil H. Johnston O.Ont, Anishinaabe writer, storyteller, language teacher and scholar, was born on the Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario, Canada, on July 13, 1929, to Mary and Rufus Johnston...
(educator, curator, essayist, cultural ambassador) - Peter Jones (missionary, reverend, chief)
- Maude KeggMaude KeggMaude Kegg was an Ojibwa writer, folk artist, and cultural interpreter...
(narrator, artist, cultural ambassador) - Caroline Helen Roy Fuhst (educator, writer, singer)
- Howard Kimewon (educator, author)
- Patricia Ningewance Nadeau (educator, author, publisher)
- Margaret Noori (educator, writer)
- Jim NorthrupJim Northrup (writer)Jim Northrup is an Anishinaabe newspaper columnist, poet, performer and political commentator from the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation in Minnesota...
(writer) - Anton Treuer (educator, writer)
- Tom Vollom (high school teacher, wrote Ojibwemowin Series 1 and 2)
See also
- Canadian Aboriginal syllabicsCanadian Aboriginal SyllabicsCanadian Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families....
- Algonquian languagesAlgonquian languagesThe Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
- List of languages
- OjibwaOjibwaThe Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
- AnishinaabeAnishinaabeAnishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
- Anishinaabe language dialectsAnishinaabe language dialectsThe Ojibwe language is spoken in a series of dialects occupying adjacent territories, forming a language complex in which mutual intelligibility between adjacent dialects may be comparatively high but declines between some non-adjacent dialects...
- Ojibwe phonologyOjibwe phonologyThe phonology of the Ojibwe language varies from dialect to dialect, but all varieties share common features...
- Ojibwe grammarOjibwe grammarThe Ojibwe language is an Algonquian American Indian language spoken throughout the Great Lakes region and westward onto the northern plains. It is one of the largest American Indian languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers, and exhibits a large number of divergent dialects. For the...
- Ojibwe writing systemsOjibwe writing systemsOjibwe is an Native American language of the Algonquian family. Ojibwe is one of the largest Native American languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers, and is characterized by a series of dialects, some of which differ significantly...
Further reading
- Beardy, Tom. Introductory Ojibwe in Severn dialect. Parts one and two. Thunder Bay, Ontario: Native Language Instructors' program, Lakehead University, 1996. ISBN 0886630185
- Cappel, Constance, editor, "Odawa Language and legends: Andrew J. Blackbird and Raymond Kiogima," Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2006. ISBN 9781599269207
- Hinton, Leanne and Kenneth Hale. 2001. The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. Academic Press. ISBN 0123493534
- 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. ISBN 0521232287
- Moose, Lawrence L. et al., Aaniin Ekidong: Ojibwe Vocabulary ProjectAaniin Ekidong: Ojibwe Vocabulary Project. St. Paul: Minnesota Humanities Center, 2009.
- Ningewance, Patricia. 1990. Anishinaabemodaa: Becoming a successful Ojibwe eavesdropper. Winnipeg: Manitoba Association for Native Languages. ISBN 189463201X
- 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. ISBN 1886895287
- Snache, Irene. 2005. Ojibwe language dictionary.Rama, ON: Mnjikaning Kendaaswin Publishers. ISBN 189463201X
- 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. ISBN 0921064144
- Toulouse, Isadore. Kidwenan An Ojibwe Language Book. Munsee-Delaware Nation, ON: Anishinaabe Kendaaswin Pub, 1995. ISBN 1896027164
- Treuer, Anton. Living our language: Ojibwe tales & oral histories. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001. ISBN 0873514041
- Treuer, Anton. Ojibwe in MinnesotaOjibwe 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. ISBN 0806125187
- Williams, Shirley I. 2002. Gdi-nweninaa: Our sound, our voice. Peterborough, ON: Neganigwane. ISBN 0973144211
External links
- A theoretical and practical grammar of the Otchipwe language by Frederic BaragaFrederic BaragaFrederic Baraga, Servant of God was a Slovene American Roman Catholic missionary, bishop, and grammarian.-Early life:Frederic Baraga was born as Friderik Irenej Baraga in the manor house at Mala Vas no...
- Noongwa e-Anishinaabemjig: People Who Speak Anishinaabemowin Today — hosted at the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
- Ojibwe Language Society
- Ojibwe Language Group
- Language Museum report for Ojibwe
- Aboriginal Languages of Canada — With data on speaker populations
- Language Geek Page on Ojibwe — Syllabary fonts and keyboard emulators are also available from this site.
- Ojibwe Toponyms
- Niizh Ikwewag — A short story in Ojibwe, originally told by Earl Nyholm, emeritus professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State UniversityBemidji State UniversityBemidji State University is a public state university in Bemidji, Minnesota, USA, located on the shores of Lake Bemidji. It is a part of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities .-History:BSU was founded in 1919 as Bemidji State Normal School...
. - Ethnologue report for Ojibwe
- Native Languages: A Support Document for the Teaching of Language Patterns, Ojibwe and Cree
- Native Languages page for Ojibwe
- Letter Men: Brothers Fight for Ojibwe Language, a story broadcast on Fresh AirFresh AirFresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...
, a National Public Radio broadcast show. - Language and Meaning — An Ojibwe Story, a story broadcast on Speaking of FaithSpeaking of FaithOn Being is a weekly public radio program about "religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas", produced by American Public Media...
, a National Public Radio broadcast show. - Bemaadizing: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Indigenous Life (An online journal)
- Comprehensive list of learning resources for Ojibwe prepared for the SSILA by Dr. Rand Valentine
Grammar and Lessons
- Comparative Ojibwe Swadesh vocabulary list of basic words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
- Rand Valentine's introduction to Ojibwe
- Grammar, lessons, and dictionaries — Ojibwe site by "Weshki-ayaad"
- Gikendandaa Ojibwemowin — Ojibwe lesson site by James Starkey (Mindjime)
- Native Languages: A Support Document for the Teaching of Language Patters — basic language patterns for Ojibwe (Manitoulin Ojibwe/OttawaOttawa languageOttawa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, spoken by the Ottawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma...
"CO" and Lac Seul Ojibwe "WO") and Cree (Swampy CreeSwampy Cree languageSwampy Cree is a dialect of the Cree language complex. Swampy Cree is spoken in a series of communities in northern Manitoba, central northeast of Saskatchewan along the Saskatchewan River and along the Hudson Bay coast and adjacent inland areas to the south and west, and Ontario along the coast...
"SC"). - Baraga, Frederic (Bishop) (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
- Aaniin Ekidong... (How Do You Say...): Ojibwe Vocabulary Project — Math and science terms for the Southwestern (Wisconsin, Leech Lake and Red Lake) and Minnesota Border Chippewa dialect of the Ojibwe language.
- Our Languages: Nakawē (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
- Anishinaabe-Ikidowinan (Ojibwe) Dictionary — Courtesy of the Kwayaciiwin Education Resource Centre. Covers Berens River and English River dialects of Northwestern Ojibwe
- Freelang Ojibwe Dictionary — Freeware off-line dictionary for Windows-based systems (with instructions on how to load on a Macintosh), updated with additional entries every 6–10 weeks. On-line searches are also available.
- Kees van Kolmeschate: My Ojibwe Documents — Assorted digital Ojibwe-related documents, including the electronic version of the 1878 Baraga Dictionary.
- Baraga, Frederic (Bishop). Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, Explained in English.
- Part I: English-Otchipwe and Part II: Otchipwe-English in the 1853 edition at Wisconsin Historical SocietyWisconsin Historical SocietyThe Wisconsin Historical Society is simultaneously a private membership and a state-funded organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of North America, with an emphasis on the state of Wisconsin and the trans-Allegheny West...
- Part I: English-Otchipwe in the 1878 edition and Part II: Otchipwe-English in the 1880 edition courtesy of Google Books
- Part I: English-Otchipwe and Part II: Otchipwe-English in the 1853 edition at Wisconsin Historical Society