Ojibwa-Potawatomi-Ottawa language
Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin (ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᒧᐎᓐ in Ojibwe syllabics) is the third most commonly spoken Native language in Canada (after Cree and Inuktitut), and the fourth most spoken in North America (behind Navajo, Cree, and Inuktitut). It is spoken by the Ojibwe people (Anishinaabeg). As their fur trading with the French increased the Ojibwes’ power, the language became the trade language of the Great Lakes region, and was for hundreds of years an extremely significant presence in the northern US.
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Classification
Ojibwe is an Algonquian language, of the Algic family of languages, and is descended from Proto-Algonquian. Among her sister languages are Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cree, Fox, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Shawnee. The Algic family contains the Algonquian languages and the so-called "Ritwan" languages, Wiyot and Yurok. Ojibwe is frequently referred to as a "Central Algonquian" language; however, Central Algonquian is an areal grouping rather than a genetic one. Among Algonquian languages, only the Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a true genetic subgroup.
Geographic distribution
Ojibwe is spoken by around 10,000 people in the United States and by as many as 45,000 in Canada, making it one of the largest Algic languages by speakers. The various dialects are spoken in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the US, and north into Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec in Canada.
Dialects
Ojibwe has quite a few divergent dialects. The primary ones are Nipissing, Plains Ojibwe (Saulteaux), Eastern Ojibwe, Northern Ojibwe, and Odaawaa (or Ottawa), Severn Ojibwe (Oji-Cree), and Southwestern Ojibwe. Algonquin is considered by some to be a particularly divergent dialect of Ojibwe, and by others to be a distinct language which is very similar to Ojibwe. This article deals primarily with the dialect spoken in the northern United States, around Minnesota and Wisconsin, Southwestern Ojibwe. Therefore, some of the descriptions given here will not necessarily hold true for other dialects of Ojibwe. A defining characteristic of many of the more northern and eastern dialects is that they exhibit a great deal of vowel syncope, the deletion of vowels in certain positions within a word. In these dialects, generally all unstressed vowels are lost (see below for a discussion of Ojibwe stress). For example, the name for the language itself in Odaawaa is Nishnaabemwin, where the unstressed vowels from Anishinaabemowin have been lost.
Many dialects have separate Ethnologue entries and SIL codes: ALQ (Algonquin), CIW (Southwestern Ojibwe ("Chippewa")), OJC (Nipissing? ("Central Ojibwe")), OJG (Eastern Ojibwe), OJB (Northern Ojibwe ("Northwestern Ojibwe")), OJS (Severn Ojibwe), OJW (Plains Ojibwe ("Western Ojibwe")), and OTW (Odaawaa).
Sounds
The largest dialects of Ojibwe tend to have 29 phonemes, 11 vowels (seven oral and four nasal) and 18 consonants. The obstruents of Ojibwe have a lenis/fortis contrast, rather than a voiced/voiceless one. The fortis consonants are always voiceless, are pronounced more strongly and longer in duration. The lenis consonants are often voiced (although they tend to be voiceless at the end of words), are pronounced less strongly and shorter in duration. The semivowel transcribed <w> is actually a velar approximant, with very little labial closure at all.
Ojibwe has a series of three short oral vowels and four long ones. The two series are characterized by both length and quality differences. The short vowels are /ɪ o ə/ (roughly the vowels in American English 'bit,' 'boat,' and 'but,' respectively), and the corresponding long vowels are /iː oː aː/ (roughly as in 'beet,' 'boat' (but longer), and 'father,' respectively); there is also an additional long vowel which lacks a corresponding short vowel, /eː/ (roughly as in 'bait'). /o/ varies across dialects between /o/ and /ʊ/ (roughly as in 'book'), and /oː/ varies between /oː/ and /uː/ (roughly as in 'boot').
Ojibwe also has four nasal vowels, all of them long. They can occur both as predictable allophonic variants of the normal long vowels when followed by a nasal+fricative cluster, but also in unpredictable environments (although they are always morpheme-final). The nasal vowels are /ãː ẽː ĩː õː/. Nasalized allophones of the short vowels also exist; they are derived from a short vowel followed by a nasal+fricative cluster (for example, imbanz, "I’m singed," is [ɪmbə̃z]). The nasalized allophones of vowels before such clusters, however, only exist in some dialects; in others, imbanz would simply be pronounced [ɪmbənz].
For many speakers, the nasal allophones of the long vowels appear not only before nasal+fricative clusters, but also before all fricatives. E.g., for many speakers, waabooz, "rabbit," is pronounced [ɰaːbõːz].
The true nasal vowel phonemes almost exclusively occur with kinship terms (e.g., -iijikiwenh-, "brother," -noshenh-, "cross-aunt," -oozhishenh-, "grandchild") and animal names (e.g., bineshiinh, "bird," asabikeshiinh, "spider," awesiinh, "wild animal"), and also frequently when a connotation of smallness or insignificance is involved.
/n/ before velars becomes [ŋ] (as in English 'sing').
The glottal fricative /h/ occurs in some dialects in place of /ʔ/ (like the catch in the throat in the middle of ‘uh-oh’).
The consonants written sh, zh, ch, and j are pronounced roughly as English "sh," "s" in ‘vision,’ "ch," and "j" (as in ‘joke’), respectively.
Vowels
| Front | Central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iː ĩː | (uː) (ũː) | |
| Near-Close | ɪ | (ʊ) | |
| Mid | eː ẽː | ə | o oː õː |
| Open | aː ãː |
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | (ʔ) | ||
| Affricate | ʧ | ʤ | |||||||
| Fricative | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | (h) | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Approximant | j | ɰ | |||||||
Prosody
Ojibwe divides words into metrical "feet." Counting from the beginning of the word, each group of two syllables constitutes a foot; the first syllable in a foot is weak, the second strong. However, long vowels are always strong, so if they occur in the weak slot of a foot, then they form a separate one-syllable foot, and counting resumes starting with the following vowel. For example, the word bebezhigooganzhii, "horse," is divided into feet as (be)(be)(zhi-goo)(gan-zhii). The strong syllables all receive at least secondary stress. The rules that determine which syllable receives the primary stress are quite complex and many words are irregular. In general, though, the strong syllable in the third foot from the end of a word receives the primary stress.
Phonotactics
Ojibwe in general permits relatively few consonant clusters, and most are only found word-medially. The allowable ones are -sk-, -shp-, -sht-, -shk- (which can also appear word-finally), -mb-, -nd- (which can also appear word-finally), -nj- (also word-finally), and -ng- (also word-finally). Furthermore, any consonant (except w, h, or y) and some clusters can be followed by w (although not word-finally).
Grammar
Ojibwe, like many American languages, is polysynthetic, meaning it exhibits a great deal of synthesis and a very high morpheme-to-word ratio (e.g., the single word for "they are Chinese" is aniibiishaabookewininiiwiwag, which contains seven morphemes: elm-PEJORATIVE-liquid-make-man-be-PLURAL, or approximately "they are leaf-liquid [i.e., tea] makers"). It is agglutinating, and thus builds up words by stringing morpheme after morpheme together, rather than having several affixes which carry numerous different pieces of information.
Like most Algonquian languages, Ojibwe distinguishes two different kinds of third person, a proximate and an obviative. The proximate is a traditional third person, while the obviative (also frequently called "fourth person") marks a less important third person if more than one third person is taking part in an action. In other words, Ojibwe uses the obviative to avoid the confusion that could be created by English sentences such as "John and Bill were good friends, ever since the day he first saw him" (who saw whom?). In Ojibwe, one of the two participants would be marked as proximate (whichever one was deemed more important), and the other marked as obviative.
Rather than a gender contrast such as masculine/feminine, Ojibwe instead distinguishes between animate and inanimate. Animate nouns are generally living things, and inanimate ones generally nonliving things, although this is not a fast rule. Objects which have great spiritual importance for the Ojibwe are very often animate rather than inanimate, for example. Some words are distinguished purely by their gender; for example, mitig can mean either "tree" or "stick:" if it is animate (plural mitigoog), it means "tree," and if it is inanimate (plural mitigoon), it means "stick."
Pronouns
Ojibwe pronouns, along with distinguishing singular and plural number and first, second, third, and fourth (obviative) persons, also carry a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural. An inclusive first person plural indicates that the pronoun includes the addressee, i.e., "we including you" (giinawind). An exclusive first person plural indicates that the addressee is not included, i.e., "we excluding you" (niinawind).
The other personal pronouns are the first singular niin, second singular giin, third singular wiin, second plural giinawaa, and third plural wiinawaa.
Ojibwe also has a set of demonstrative pronouns, distinguishing animate/inanimate, here/there/yonder/over here, singular/plural, and proximate/obviative. The demonstratives differ in their phonetic forms very significantly across Ojibwe dialects and communities, so this table will not be entirely correct for many speakers:
| Animate | Inanimate | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Obviative | Singular | Plural | |
| Here | wa'aw | ongow | onow | o'ow | onow |
| There | a'aw | ingiw | iniw | i'iw | iniw |
| Over there/ Yonder |
a'awedi | ingiwedig | iniwedin | i'iwedi | iniwedin |
| Over here | wa'awedi | ongowedig | onowedin | o'owedi | onowedin |
Ojibwe also has a set of interrogative pronouns (awenen, "who?", awegonen, "what?"), dubitative pronouns (awegwen, "I don't know who", wegodogwen, "I don't know what"), and "indefinite" pronouns (awiiya, "someone", gegoo, "something," both of which can be preceded by gaawiin or akina to mean "no one, nothing" and "everyone, everything," respectively).
Verbs
Ojibwe verbs mark not only information on the subject (their animacy, person, and plurality), but also on the object. There are several different classes of verbs in the language, which differ based on whether they are transitive or intransitive, and whether they take animate or inanimate subjects. The main classes of verbs are abbreviated VAI (intransitive with animate subject), VII (intransitive with inanimate subject), VTA (transitive with animate object), and VTI (transitive with inanimate object).
Verbs mark tenses with prefixes (gii-, past, ga- and da-, future, and wii-, desiderative future), but also can take a myriad of suffixes known as "preverbs", which convey a great amount of additional information about an action. For example, the preverb izhi- means "in such a way," and so its addition to the verb root -ayaa-, "to be," makes the verb izhi-ayaa, "to be a certain way." The preverb bimi-, "along," combines with the verb root -batoo-, "to run," to form bimibatoo, "to run along, run by."
Furthermore, there are three so-called "orders" of Ojibwe verbs. The basic one is called Independent Order, and is simply the indicative mood. There is also a Conjunct Order, which is most often used with verbs in subordinate clauses, in questions (other than simple yes-no questions), and with participles (verbal nouns, whose meaning is roughly equivalent to "someone who is (VERB), does (VERB)"). The final order is the Imperative Order, used with commands and corresponding to the imperative mood.
There are two imperatives in Ojibwe: the immediate imperative, used to indicate that the action must be completely right away (nibaan!, "Eat (right now)!"), and the delayed imperative, used to indicate that the action should be completely eventually, but not immediately (nibaakan!, "eat (in a little bit)!").
As an example of some of the Ojibwe verbal distinctions at work, consider the conjugation of positive long-vowel-final VAI verbs (using the example nibaa, "to sleep"):
| Independent | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Conjugation | Example | Gloss | ||
| Niin | ni | _ | 0 | ninibaa | "I sleep" |
| Giin | gi | _ | 0 | ginibaa | "You sleep" |
| Wiin | 0 | _ | (w) | nibaa | "S/he/it sleeps" |
| Obviative | 0 | _ | wan | nibaawan | "S/he/it (obviate) sleeps" |
| Indefinite | 0 | _ | m | nibaam | "Someone sleeps" |
| Niinawind | ni | _ | min | ninibaamin | "We (exclusive) sleep" |
| Giinawind | gi | _ | min | ginibaamin | "We (inclusive) sleep" |
| Giinawaa | gi | _ | m | ginibaam | "You guys sleep" |
| Wiinawaa | 0 | _ | wag | nibaawag | "They sleep" |
| Conjunct | |||||
| Subject | Conjugation | Example | Gloss | ||
| Niin | 0 | _ | yaan | nibaayaan | "That I sleep" |
| Giin | 0 | _ | yan | nibaayan | "That you sleep" |
| Wiin | 0 | _ | d | nibaad | "That s/he/it sleeps" |
| Obviative | 0 | _ | nid | nibaanid | "That s/he/it (obviate) sleeps" |
| Indefinite | 0 | _ | ng | nibaang | "That someone sleeps" |
| Niinawind | 0 | _ | yaang | nibaayaang | "That we (exclusive) sleep" |
| Giinawind | 0 | _ | yang | nibaayang | "That we (inclusive) sleep" |
| Giinawaa | 0 | _ | yeg | nibaayeg | "That you guys sleep" |
| Wiinawaa | 0 | _ | waad | nibaawaad | "That they sleep" |
| Imperative | |||||
| Subject | Conjugation | Example | Gloss | ||
| Giin | 0 | _ | n | nibaan | "You! Sleep!" |
| Giinawind | 0 | _ | daa | nibaadaa | "Let's sleep!" |
| Giinawaa | 0 | _ | k/g | nibaak nibaag |
"You guys! Sleep!" |
Adjectives
Ojibwe has no adjectives per se, but rather verbs which function as adjectives. Thus, instead of saying "the flower is blue," you would say something which is actually closer to "the flower blues" (ozhaawashkwaa waabigwan). Ojibwe does have a copula in some situations, in that it has a verb (several, in fact) that can be translated as "to be" and used in situations to equate one thing with another; however, a copula is not always used in Ojibwe—for example, when using demonstrative pronouns (jiimaan o'ow, "this is a canoe").
Syntax
As Ojibwe is highly synthetic, word order and sentence structure is relatively free, since a great deal of information is already encoded onto the verb. A sentence is usually of the order NV, VN, or NVN (where N="noun" and V="verb"). The subject can go before or after the verb, as can the object. In general, whichever participant is deemed more important or in-focus by the speaker is placed first, before the verb, and the less important participant follows the verb. Ojibwe tends to prefer a VS order (verb-subject) when subjects are specified with separate nominals or pronouns (e.g., bakade a'aw asabikeshiinh, it.is.hungry that.there.AN spider, "that spider is hungry").
Vocabulary
Although it does contain a few loans from English (gaapii, "coffee," maam(aa), "mom") and French (boozhoo, "hello"), in general, Ojibwe 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, "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 some speakers, rather than gaapii.
Writing system
Ojibwe is written using a syllabary, which is usually said to have been developed by missionary James Evans around 1840 and based on Pitman's shorthand. In the United States, the language is most often written phonemically with Roman characters. Syllabics are primarily used in Canada. The newest 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 quickly gaining popularity among language teachers in the United States and Canada because of its ease of use.
Double Vowel System
In the Double Vowel System, short vowels are written as expected, where <a>, <i>, and <o> represent /ə/, /ɪ/, and /o/~/ʊ/. To write long vowels, the short vowels are doubled (hence the name "Double Vowel System"), so that <aa>, <ii>, and <oo> represent /aː/, /iː/, and /oː/~/uː/. The remaining long vowel, /eː/, is just written <e>, since it has no corresponding short vowel. To indicate that a long vowel at the end of a word is nasal, <nh> is written after it (e.g., <-aanh> at the end of a word represents /ãː/). Word-internally, nasal long vowels are indicated with a following <ny> (e.g., in the middle of a word, <-aany-> represents /ãː/). The nasalized allophones of the vowels, which occur preceding nasal+fricative clusters, are not indicated in writing.
The postalveolar affricates /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ are written <ch> and <j>, and the postalveolar fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are written <sh> and <zh>. The postalveolar semivowel /j/ is written <y>, and the velar semivowel /ɰ/ is written <w>. In the Double Vowel System, lenis obstruents are written using voiced characters (e.g. <b>, <d>, <g>, etc.), and fortis ones using voiceless characters (e.g., <p>, <t>, <k>, etc.). The glottal stop, /ʔ/, is transcribed <'>.
Syllabary
See Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics for a more in-depth discussion of the Ojibwe syllabary and related scripts
The Ojibwe syllabary is primarily used by northern (i.e., Canadian) Ojibwe; speakers of more southern dialects (i.e., American speakers) tend to use the Double Vowel System more often. The syllabary involves twelve basic symbols, <p t k ch s sh h m n w y>, as well as one representing the lack of a consonant; these are the "initials," which indicate the initial consonant of the syllable. These symbols can be rotated into one of four directions, each direction representing one of the four primary vowels, <a e i o>. The vowels (except e) can be lengthened by adding a dot above the character. For example, the character for the syllable taa would be written by taking the t initial and rotating it in the a direction, then adding a dot above the symbol.
There were also "finals," smaller symbols which follow the main syllable character and indicate what, if any, final consonants the syllable has. For example, for the syllable taan, the taa character would be written, and then the n final placed to the right. Not all speakers indicate all finals in writing.
The lenis consonants are not distinguished in writing from the fortis ones, and thus both /t/ and /d/ are written <t>, etc. However, some speakers will place the <h> initial before another initial to indicate that that initial is fortis rather than lenis.
The <h> initial and final are also used to represent the glottal stop.
History
In the evolution from Proto-Algonquian to Ojibwe, the most sweeping change was the voicing of all Proto-Algonquian voiceless obstruents except when they were in clusters with *h, *ʔ,
- θ, or *x (which were subsequently lost). Proto-Algonquian *l became Ojibwe n. Proto-Algonquian
- θ shows several reflexes in Ojibwe; it appears as n, s, sh, z, or zh, depending on the historical environment.
The relatively symmetrical Proto-Algonquian vowel system, *i, *i:, *e, *e:, *a, *a:, *o, *o: remained fairly intact in Ojibwe, although *e and *i merged as i, and the short vowels, as described above, underwent a quality change as well.
Some examples of the changes at work are presented in the table below:
| Proto-Algonquian | Ojibwe reflex | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| *penkwi | bingwi | "ashes" |
| *mekiθe:wa | migizh | "to bark at" |
| *ši:ʔši:pa | zhiishiib | "duck" |
| *axkyi | aki | "earth" |
| *-te:hi- | -de'- | "heart" (root) |
| *elenyiwa | inini | "man" |
| *wexpwa:kana | opwaagan | "pipe" |
A further list of changes and examples can be found at Correspondences of Ojibwe and Cree Sounds.
See Also
References
- Nichols, John D. and Earl Nyholm. A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
- Mithun, Marianne. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: University Press, 1999.
External links
- Our Languages: Nakawē (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
- Ojibwe Language Society
- Rand Valentine's introduction to Ojibwe
- Grammar, lessons, and dictionaries
- Language Museum report for Ojibwe
- Aboriginal Languages of Canada - With data on speaker populations
- Language Geek Page on Ojibwe
- Ojibwe Toponyms
- Niizh Ikwewag — A short story in Ojibwe, originally told by Earl Nyholm, emeritus professor of Ojibwe at Bimidji State University.
- Ethnologue report for Ojibwe