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Chippewa (native name: Anishinaabemowin; also known as Southwestern Ojibwa, Ojibwe, Ojibway, or ''Ojibwemowin'') is an Algonquian language spoken from upper
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
westward to
North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. It represents the southern component of the
Ojibwe language Ojibwe , also known as Ojibwa , Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian lan ...
. Chippewa is part of the Algonquian language family and an indigenous language of North America. Chippewa is part of the
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
of Ojibwe (including Chippewa,
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...
, and
Oji-Cree The Oji-Cree are a First Nations in Canada, First Nation in the Canada, Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, residing in a narrow band extending from the Missinaibi River region in Northeastern Ontario at the east to Lake Winnipeg at the w ...
), which is closely related to
Potawatomi The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a me ...
. It is spoken on the southern shores of Lake Superior and in the areas toward the south and west of Lake Superior in Michigan and Southern Ontario. The speakers of this language generally call it ''Anishinaabemowin'' (the Anishinaabe language) or more specifically, ''Ojibwemowin'' (the
Ojibwa The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
language). There is a large amount of variation in the language. Some of the variations are caused by ethnic or geographic heritage, while other variations occur from person to person. There is no single standardization of the language as it exists as a
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
, according to Nichols: "It exists as a chain of interconnected local varieties, conventionally called dialects."Nichols, viii Some varieties differ greatly and can be so diverse that speakers of two different varieties cannot understand each other. In the southern range of are where the language is spoken, it is mostly spoken by the older generations of the Anishinaabe people, and many of its speakers also speak English. The language is classified as severely endangered by UNESCO


Number of speakers

The Chippewa dialects have been the focus of many academic works, from
William Whipple Warren William Whipple Warren (May 27, 1825 – June 1, 1853) was a historian, interpreter, and legislator in the Minnesota Territory. The son of Lyman Marcus Warren, an American fur trader and Mary Cadotte, the Ojibwe-Metis daughter of fur trader ...
and Fr. Frederick Baraga in the 19th century, Frances Densmore, Jan P. B. de Josselin de Jong, Charles Fiero, Earl Nyholm and John Nichols in the 20th century. However, the Chippewa dialect of ''Ojibwemowin'' has continued to steadily decline. Beginning in the 1970s many of the communities have aggressively put their efforts into language revitalization, but have only managed to produce some fairly educated second-language speakers. Today, the majority of the first-language speakers of this dialect of the Ojibwe language are elderly, whose numbers are quickly diminishing, while the number of second-language speakers among the younger generation are growing. However, none of the second-language speakers have yet to transition to the fluency of a first-language speaker. In the summer of 2009, Anton Treuer of
Bemidji State University Bemidji State University (BSU) is a public university in Bemidji, Minnesota. Founded as a preparatory institution for teachers in 1919, it provides higher education to north-central Minnesota. It is part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Univ ...
conducted an informal survey of number of first-language speakers of the Chippewa dialects in Minnesota and Wisconsin in order to convene a language session to address the need of vocabulary associated with math and sciences. Together with other Reservations that were not surveyed, Treuer estimates only around 1,000 first-language speakers of the Chippewa dialect in the United States.


Dialects

According to Ethnologue, the Chippewa Language or the Southwestern dialect of the Ojibwe language is divided into four smaller dialects: * Upper Michigan-Wisconsin Chippewa: on
Keweenaw Bay Keweenaw Bay is an arm of Lake Superior in North America. It is located adjacent to the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, to the southeast of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Keweenaw Bay is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide at the mouth. The he ...
,
Lac Vieux Desert Lac Vieux Desert is a lake in the United States divided between Gogebic County, Michigan, and Vilas County, Wisconsin. Fed primarily by springs in the surrounding swamps, it is the source of the Wisconsin River, which flows out of its southwest co ...
, Lac du Flambeau, Red Cliff, Bad River,
Lac Courte Oreilles Lac Courte Oreilles ( ) is a large freshwater lake located in northwest Wisconsin in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, Sawyer County in townships 39 and 40 north, ranges 8 and 9 west. It is irregular in shape, having numerous peninsulas and bays, and is ...
,
St. Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...
and Mille Lacs (District III). * Central Minnesota Chippewa: on Mille Lacs (Districts I and II), Fond du Lac,
Leech Lake Leech Lake is a lake located in north central Minnesota, United States. It is southeast of Bemidji, located mainly within the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, and completely within the Chippewa National Forest. It is used as a reservoir. The la ...
, White Earth and Turtle Mountain. * Red Lake Chippewa: on Red Lake * Minnesota Border Chippewa: on
Grand Portage Grand Portage National Monument is a United States National Monument located on the north shore of Lake Superior in northeastern Minnesota that preserves a vital center of fur trade activity and Anishinaabeg Ojibwe heritage. The area became ...
and Bois Forte


Structure


Syntax

Like other varieties of ''Anishinaabemowin'', in Chippewa a great deal of information is already contained in the words, so the sentence order can be quite free, but the primary word order is subject–verb–object. There are three general parts of speech: nouns, verbs, and others. Nouns types are broken down by number and by whether they are animate or inanimate gender. There are four verb types used to show if the verb is transitive, if the subject of the verb is animate or inanimate, if the object of the verb is animate or inanimate, and the plurality of the subject. There is also a verb type that may only be used in the inverse. There are case markings that come at the beginning of words to show what verb type or noun type the word is. Other classes of words include adverbs, numbers, particles, pre-nouns, and pre-verbs. Pre-verbs and pre-nouns are not whole words; however, they are modifying forms that freely combine with nouns, verbs, or adverbs to add meaning. These words come before that which they are describing, and may not be at the beginning of the word if other meanings are added to the word. Hyphens in Chippewa signify the break between a stem and a pre-noun or pre-verb. The language uses postpositions, which are attached to the ends of words and are not separated from the words they govern. For example, the word ''ashangewigamig'' means "welfare office" in Chippewa, but the word ''ashangewigamigong'' means "to the welfare office." The "-ong" ending and other similar endings in Chippewa are locatives that corresponds with the English words "in", "at", "on", "by". Chippewa also generally uses an adjective-noun order; however, sometimes the two words are modified and combine to form a single word. Many times one word is used to show phrases. Prepositional phrases and some noun phrases are expressed in a single word. Noun-verb combinations are also sometimes expressed in a single word. The Chippewa language has pronouns to show person (first, second, or third), and number (singular or plural). The language also has an inclusive and an exclusive first-person plural pronoun. These pronouns are included in the verb and usually serve at the beginning of the verb along with a relational suffix.


Morphology

The Chippewa language uses inflection to make new forms of words and also derivation to make new words from parts of others. It uses noun incorporation, which is the inclusion of nouns within verbs and has many affixes attached onto nouns and verbs. For these reasons, Chippewa's basic morphological type is polysynthetic. The language uses compound nouns. There are few simple nouns. The majority of nouns are formed by a composition of stems and affixes. The Chippewa uses prefixes, suffixes and even infixes. To show plurality, suffixes are added onto the ends of words. Prefixes are used to show possession, and are also used to show verb or noun type and also tense. Because of all of the incorporation of meanings into one word, it can be very difficult to pull apart the meanings of some of the phrases used. Since prefixes are used so frequently, the stem of some words may be hidden somewhere in the middle. It might be difficult to find a word in the dictionary for one who has never been exposed to the language.


Phonology

The Chippewa language has three short vowels (a i o) and four long vowels (aa e ii oo). There are also nasal vowels which consist of a basic vowel followed by "nh". The "h" may be omitted before a "y" or a glottal stop. Nasalized vowels are vowels before "ns", "nz", or "nzh". Consonants are comparable to their English counterparts and are written: b ch d g h ' j k l n nh p r s sh t w y z zh. Letters not used in Chippewa are f l r u v and x, letter c is used only as a digraph, and letter h usually exists as a digraph, but on very rare occasions usually in exclamations, do exist independently. Letters l, f, and r only occur in words loaned from other languages. There are certain consonant clusters that occur in Chippewa: sk, shp, sht, shk, mb, nd, nj, ng. A consonant cluster also may occur with a single consonant followed by a "w" before a vowel. Most letters are pronounced similarly to how they are pronounced in English. Letters b, d, and g are often devoiced when placed near voiceless consonants or at the beginning of words. Sometimes s, t, and ch are pronounced with more force than how pronounced in English and also with a rounding of the lips. The Chippewa language uses voiced and voiceless stops, fricatives, affricates, nasal stops, and approximates. It also uses labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, and glottal consonant places.Nichols & Nyholm, xxvi


Notes


See also

*
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. ...


References

* Densmore, Frances. ''Chippewa Customs''. Washington, D.C.: Minnesota Historical Society, 1979. * Nichols, John and Earl Nyholm. ''A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1995. * Nichols, John. An Ojibwe Text Anthology. London, Ontario: The Centre for Research and Teaching of Canadian Native Languages, 1988. * Rhodes, Richard. ''Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary''. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1985. * Treuer, Anton
Living Our Language: Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories
St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001. * Treuer, Anton
Ojibwe in Minnesota
St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010. * Treuer, Anton.
Ojibwe Vocabulary Project
'. Minneapolis: Minnesota Humanities Center, 2009.


External links


Ojibwe People's DictionaryOLAC resources in and about the Chippewa language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chippewa Language Ojibwe culture Anishinaabe languages Central Algonquian languages Great Lakes tribal culture Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands Indigenous languages of the North American Plains Indigenous languages of the North American Subarctic Languages of the United States Indigenous languages of North America