Dialect Continuum - Cree and Ojibwa

Cree and Ojibwa

Cree is a group of closely related Algonquian languages that are distributed from Alberta to Labrador in Canada. These languages form the Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi dialect continuum with around 117,410 speakers. These languages can be roughly classified into nine groups. From west to east, they are:

• Plains Cree (y-dialect)
• Woods Cree language or Woods/Rocky Cree (th-dialect)
• Swampy Cree (n-dialect)
  • Eastern Swampy Cree
  • Western Swampy Cree
• Moose Cree (l-dialect)
• James Bay Cree (y-dialect, sometimes called East Cree)
  • Northern East Cree
  • Southern East Cree
• Atikamekw (r-dialect)
• Western Montagnais (l-dialect)
• Eastern Montagnais (n-dialect, also sometimes called Innu-aimun)
• Naskapi (y-dialect)

Various Cree languages are used as languages of instruction and taught as subjects, for example, Plains Cree, Eastern Cree, Montagnais, etc. Mutual intelligibility between some dialects can be low. There is no accepted standard Cree dialect.

Ojibwa (Chippewa) is a group of closely related Algonquian languages in Canada, which is distributed from British Columbia to Quebec, and the United States, distributed from Montana to Michigan, with diaspora communities in Kansas and Oklahoma. Together with the Cree, the Ojibwe dialect continuum forms their own continuum, but with the Oji-Cree language of this continuum joining to the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum through Swampy Cree. The Ojibwe continuum has 70,606 speakers. Roughly from northwest to southeast, their dialects are:

• Ojibwa-Ottawa language
  • Algonquin
  • Oji-Cree (Northern Ojibwa)
  • Ojibwa
    • Saulteaux (Western Ojibwa)
    • Chippewa (Southwestern Ojibwa)
    • Northwestern Ojibwa
    • Nipissing (Central Ojibwa)
    • Mississauga (Eastern Ojibwa)
  • Ottawa (Southeastern Ojibwa)
• Potawatomi

Unlike the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum with distinct n/y/l/r/ð(th) dialect characteristics and noticeable west-east k/č(ch) axis, the Ojibwe continuum is marked with vowel syncope along the west-east axis and ∅/n along the north-south axis.