Ojibwe Dialects

Ojibwe Dialects

The 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. Mutual intelligibility between some non-adjacent dialects, notably Ottawa, Severn Ojibwe, and Algonquin, is low enough that they could be considered distinct languages. 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 general name for the language in Ojibwe is /anɪʃɪnaːpeːmowɪn/, written in one common orthography as Anishinaabemowin and as ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᒧᐎᓐ in 'Eastern' syllabics, with local pronunciation and spelling variants, and in some cases distinctive local names for particular dialects. The dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Canada from western Québec, through Ontario, Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan, with outlying communities in Alberta and British Columbia, 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 dialects of Ojibwe are divided into distinctive northern and southern groups, with intervening transition dialects that have a mixture of features from the adjacent dialects.

This article lays out the general structure of Ojibwe dialectology, with links to separate articles on each dialect. The Potawatomi language is closely related to Ojibwe; information is at Ojibwe language: Relationship of Ojibwe and Potawatomi. An Ojibwe pidgin language is discussed at Ojibwe language: Broken Ogghibbeway, and the use of various dialects of Ojibwe as lingua franca is at Ojibwe language: Lingua franca. Ojibwe borrowed words are found in Menominee and Michif; for discussion see Ojibwe language: Ojibwe influence on other languages.