Ojibwa (Anishinaabemowin))
Biin dig gain "welcome"
Biin dig gain "welcome"
Introduction |
 IntroductionOjibwe, also called Ojibwe, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin, is the third most commonly spoken aboriginal language in Canada (after Cree and Inuktitut), and the fourth in the U.S. (after Navajo, Cree, and Inuktitut). It used to be the trade language of the Great Lakes region. Today, Ojibwe is spoken by 45,000 people in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia in Canada; and by 10,000 people in the U.S. from upper Michigan to North Dakota. Various distinct dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the U.S., and in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec in Canada. The primary dialects are Plains, Eastern, Northern, Oddaawaa (Ottawa), Severn, and Southwestern Ojibwe. These dialects are so distinct, that Ethnologue entries define some of them as separate languages. The sections below describe Southwestern Ojibwe -- a dialect spoken in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Some of the features will not be descriptive of other dialects of Ojibwe. |
Structure
Sound System |
Sound system
Many of the more northern and eastern dialects are characterized by vowel syncope, the deletion of unstressed vowels, e.g., in Odaawaa, Anishinaabemowin "Ojibwe", becomes Nishnaabemwin. Consonants
Ojibwe allows few consonant clusters, mostly in the middle or at the end of words. Prosody Click here to listen to a story in Ojibwe.
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Grammar Noun phrase Pronouns Verb phrase Ojibwe verbs use prefixes to mark tense (past and future). They also use a variety of prefixes that convey additional information about the action. For instance,the verb root -batoo "to run" can combine with the prefix bimi- "along" to form the verb bimibatoo "to run along." Ojibwe verbs have three "orders" that more or less correspond to mood in European languages: the Independent Order corresponds to the indicative mood; the Conjunct Order is used mostly in subordinate clauses; the Imperative Order correspond to the imperative mood. There are two imperatives: an immediate imperative (do something right away), and delayed imperative (do something later). Instead of adjectives, Ojibwe uses verbs which function as adjectives, e.g., ozhaawashkwaa waabigwan "the flower blues" (example from Wikipedia). Word order |
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Ojibwe tends not to borrow words from other languages. Instead, it creates new words by using native elements. For instance, bemisemagak "airplane" literally means "thing that flies." However, there exist a few borrowing from English e.g., gaapi "coffee" and French e.g.,boozhoo "bonjour". To give you an idea of what words in Ojibwe look like, here are some common items:
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Writing |
There is no standard orthography for writing Ojibwe. In Canada, it is written in a syllabary developed circa 1840 by a missionary named James Evans. The syllabary is based on Pitman's shorthand.
Click here to learn more about Canadian aboriginal syllabics. In the U.S., Ojibwe is usually written using the Roman alphabet. The newest Roman character-based writing system is the Double Vowel System, devised by Charles Fiero. In this system, long vowels are written with double vowel symbols, e.g., a long /a/ is written as aa. The Double Vowel System is quickly becoming accepted due to its ease and adaptability to the computer keyboard. Take a look at the text of Genesis 1.1 in Eastern and Northern Ojibwe written in the Double Vowel System.
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Ojibwe words in English
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Resources
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