The Ojibwe language is an Algonquian American Indian language spoken throughout the Great Lakes region and westward onto the northern plains. It is one of the largest American Indian languages north of Mexico in terms of number of speakers, and exhibits a large number of divergent dialects. Due to its long history, diversity and just as diverse external influences, there are numerous ways to write the Ojibwe language. Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin in Eastern 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). ... Pre-contact distribution of Algonquian languages The Algonquian (also Algonkian) languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family (the two Algic languages that are not Algonquian are Wiyot and Yurok of northwestern California). ... Indigenous languages of the Americas (or Amerindian Languages) are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. ... The Great Lakes from space The Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes on or near the United States-Canadian border. ...

Ojibwe writing systems have been claimed to have existed for over a millenium. However, very little of the ancient writing survives to this day. Instead, 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. Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin in Eastern 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). ... James Evans (January 18, 1801-November 23, 1846) was a Canadian Methodist missionary and amateur linguist. ... Pitman Shorthand is a system of rapid writing developed by Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897). ...

Ojibwe "Hieroglyphics"

Not much is know regarding the Ojibwe "Hieroglyphics". Similar to the Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing, they are found as petroglyphs, on story-hides, and on Midewiwin Teaching Scrolls. In treaty negotiations with the British, the treaty-signing chiefs would often mark an "X" for their signature and then use the Ojibwe "Hieroglyphic" character representing their Doodem. Today, Ojibwe artists commonly incorporate motifs found in the Ojibwe "Hieroglyphics" to instill "Native Pride." Mikmaq hieroglyphic writing was a pictographic writing scheme and memory aid used by Mikmaq people both before and after European contact. ... Petroforms are large shapes that were made out of large rocks. ... The Midewiwin (also spelled Midewin and Medewiwin) is from the term for the Grand Medicine Society of the aboriginal groups of the Great Lakes region in North America. ... The Ojibway or Anishinabe people of North America had written down complex mathematical and geometrical patterns and shapes on birch bark scrolls. ... A totem is any natural or supernatural object, being or animal which has personal symbolic meaning to an individual and to whose phenomena and energy one feels closely associated with during ones life. ...

Romanized Ojibwe Systems

Modern Roman Orthographies

Fiero Double Vowel System

The newest Roman character-based writing system is the Double Vowel System, devised by Charles Fiero during the 1950s. Although there is no standard orthography for Ojibwe, the Fiero Double Vowel System (or simply the "Double Vowel System") is quickly gaining popularity among language teachers in the United States and Canada because of its ease of use. During the 1990s, Ojibwe language educators agreed upon the use of the Double Vowel System for the purposes of international communication. 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the year. ...

This system is called "Double Vowel" from the fact that the long vowel correspondences to the short vowels <a>, <i> and <o> are written with a doubled value. In this system, the nasal "ny" as a final element is instead written as "nh." The allowable consonant clusters are <mb>, <nd>, <ng>, <nj>, <nz>, <ns>, <nzh>, <sk>, <shp>, <sht> and <shk>.

In the Fiero Double Vowel System, short vowels are written as expected, where <a>, <i>, and <o> represent /ə~ʌ/, /ɪ/, and /o~ʊ/. To write long vowels, the short vowels are doubled, so that <aa>, <ii>, and <oo> represent /aː/, /iː/, and /oː~uː/. The remaining long vowel, /eː~ɛː/, 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. In the original Fiero Double Vowel System, nasaled long vowels now represented with <ny>/<-nh> were written with the ogonek diacritic. However, due to inavailability of ogonek on most typewriters in the United States and Canada, it became a common practice to represent these nasals by underlining the nasaled long vowels. The Double Vowel System used today employing the <ny>/<-nh> for nasals are sometimes called "Fiero-Nichols Double Vowel System" since John Nichols popularized this convention. In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ... In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ... (adj. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Ogonek (Polish for little tail; In Lithuanian it is nosinÄ— which literally means nasal) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in Polish (letters Ä…, Ä™), Lithuanian (Ä…, Ä™, į, ų), Navajo and Western Apache (Ä…, Ä…Ä…, Ä™, ęę, į, įį, , ), Chiricahua and Mescalero (Ä…, Ä…Ä…, Ä™, ęę, į, įį, ų, ųų) and Tutchone. ... An underline is a horizontal line placed below a portion of text to show emphasis, or for titles of longer works (books, movies, etc. ...

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 <'>. Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... An affricate is a consonant that begins like a stop (most often an alveovelar, such as [t] or [d]) and that doesnt have a release of its own, but opens directly into a fricative (or, in one language, into a trill). ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... Semivowels (also called semiconsonants or glides) are vowels that function phonemically as consonants. ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Fortis (from Latin fortis strong) and lenis (from Latin lenis weak) are linguistics terms. ... In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ... Fortis may refer to a Canadian company, see Fortis Inc. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ...

Double Vowel Roman treats digraphs as a distinct sound element, and thus would parse them accordingly. The resulting alphabetical order for the Fiero Double Vowel Roman is:

a aa b ch d e g ' h i ii j k m n (nh) ny o oo p s sh t w y z zh

Rhodes Double Vowel System

The Rhodes Double Vowel System, a minor variation of the Fiero Double Vowel System, is popular in Michigan and Southeastern Ontario, often characterized by loss of short vowels due to the syncopated accenting of the words. In this system, glottal stop is transcribed as <h>. Since vowel syncope occurs frequently with the Odawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects, which employ this system, additional consonant clusters are allowed. As a result of syncope, this system uses <'> to represent a vowel lost during syncope which otherwise may create a confusing consonant clustering, such as to distinguish <n'g> from <ng>. Also, a sub-positional dot under <k> and a super-positional dot over <g> are used to represent <o> and <w> lost during syncope but where some speakers still colour their consonants with a very slight /ɰ/. Unlike the Fiero Double Vowel system, the Rhodes Double Vowel system do not make parsing considerations for the diglyphs. Consequently, the alphabetical order is:

' a b c d e g (ġ) h i j k (k̩) m n o p s t w y z

Saulteaux-Cree Roman System

The Saulteaux-Cree Roman System is based on the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. This system is found in northern Ontario, southern Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan. Compared to the Fiero or Rhodes Double Vowel Systems, long vowels, including <e>, are shown with either macron or circumflex diacritic marks, depending on the community's standards. Though syncope is not a common feature with Saulteaux, the occasional vowel loss is indicated with a <'>. Nasaled vowels are generally not marked. The resulting alphabetical order is:
A macron (from Gr. ... The circumflex ( ˆ ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages. ...

' a â c ê h i î k m n o ô p s š t w y

Hybrid System

The Hybrid System is found in northern Ontario. Generally, this sytem use the same consonant scheme as the Saulteaux-Cree Roman System, but without the use of diacritics. This results in the use of <sh> instead of <š> and the use of double vowels to represent long vowels.

Algonquin Roman System

Unlike the other Roman Systems modeled after English, the Algonquin Roman System is instead modeled after French. Its most striking features are the use of circumflex diacritics over the long vowels, /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ written as <tc> and <dj>, and /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are written as <c> and <j>.

Correspondence Chart of the Popular Roman Systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ...

Folk Spelling

Folk spelling of Anishinaabemowin is not a system, per se, as it varies from person to person writing speech into script. Each writer employing folk spelling would write out the word as how the speaker himself would form the words. Depending on if the reference sound representation is based on English or French, a word may be represented using common reference language sound representation, thus better able to reflect the vowel or consonant value. However, since this requires the knowledge of how the speaker himself speaks, folk spelling quickly becomes difficult to read for those individuals not familiar with the writer.

Historical Roman Orthographies

Evans System

James Evans, a missionary from Kingston upon Hull, UK, had prepared the Speller and Interpreter in English and Indian [1] in 1837, but was unable to get its printing sanctioned by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Evans continued to use his Ojibwe writing system in his work in Ontario. However, his students appear to have had conceptual difficulties working with the same alphabet for two different languages with very different sounds. Furthermore, the structure of the Ojibwe language made most words quite long when spelled with Roman letters, and Evans himself found this approach awkward. His book also noted differences in the Ojibwe dialectual field. The "default" dialect was the Ojibwemowin spoken at Rice Lake, Ontario (marked as "RL"). The other two were Credit, Ontario, (marked as "C") and areas to the west (marked as "W"). James Evans (January 18, 1801-November 23, 1846) was a Canadian Methodist missionary and amateur linguist. ... Hull or Kingston upon Hull is a British city situated on the north bank of the Humber estuary. ... | Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1837 - 1901) 1837 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS; more commonly known as Bible Society) is a charity that was founded on March 7, 1804. ... ...

Evans' Ojibwe writing system recognized short and long vowels, but did not distinguish between lenis and fortis consonants. Another distinct character of Evans System was the use of <e> and <o> to serve both as a consonant and vowel. As vowels, they served as /i/ and /o/ while as consonants, they served as /j/ and /ɰ/. The system distinguished long vowels from short vowels by doubling the short vowel value. Evans also used three diacritics to aid the reader in pronunciation. He used a macron (¯) over a vowel or vowels to represent nasals (/Ṽ/) and diaersis (¨) over the vowel to indicate a glottal stop (/ʔ/); if the glottal stop was final, he duplicated the vowel and would place a circumflex (ˆ) over the duplicated vowel. "Gladness," for example, was written as buubenandumooen (baapinendamowin in the Fiero system). A macron (from Gr. ... Ä ä Ö ö Ãœ ü The word umlaut is used to refer to the diacritical mark composed of two small dots placed over a vowel ( ¨ ) to indicate the phonological phenomenon of umlaut in German, and in several other languages which have borrowed the symbol from German. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... The circumflex ( ˆ ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages. ...

Evans eventually abandoned his Ojibwe writing system and formulated what would eventually become the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. His Ojibwe syllabics parsing order was based on his Romanized Ojibwe. Canadian aboriginal syllabic writing (often syllabics for short) is a family of writing schemes which are used to write a number of aboriginal Canadian languages from the Algonquian, Athabaskan and Inuit language families. ...

Baraga System

Bishop Frederic Baraga, in his years as a missionary to the Ojibwa and the Odawa, became the fore-most grammarian of Anishinaabemowin. Frederic Baraga, (June 29, 1797 – January 19, 1868) was a Slovenian American missionary, bishop and grammarian. ... The Ojibwa, Aanishanabe or Chippewa (also Ojibwe, Ojibway, Chippeway, Anishinaabe, or Anishinabek) are the largest group of Native Americans/First Nations north of Mexico, including Métis. ... The Ottawa (also Odawa or Odaawa) are a Native American people. ... This article is about grammar from a linguistic perspective. ... Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin in Eastern 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). ...

His work A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, explained in English is still considered the best reference regarding the Ojibwe vocabulary. In his dictionary, grammar books and prayer book, the sound representations of Ojibwe are shown in the table below. There has also been discussion regarding if Baraga represented nasal. In his earlier editions of the dictionary, circumflex accents were used to indicate nasals but in his later editions, they appear to instead either represent long vowels or stressed vowels, believed to be changed by the editor of his dictionary.

Cuoq System

Jean André Cuoq was a missionary to the Algonquin and the Iroquois. He wrote several grammar books, hymnals, a catechism and his premier work Lexique de la Langue Algonquine in 1886, focusing on the form of Anishinaabemowin spoken among the Algonquin. His published works regarding the Algonquin language used basic sounds, without differentiating the consonant strengths or vowel lengths. However, unlike Baraga, Cuoq further broke words down to their root forms and clarified ambiguously defined words found in Baraga's dictionary. The Algonquins or Algonkins are an aboriginal North American people speaking Algonquin, an Algonquian language. ... The Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee, also known as the League of Peace and Power, Five Nations, or Six Nations) is a group of First Nations/Native Americans. ... The Algonquins or Algonkins are an aboriginal North American people speaking Algonquin, an Algonquian language. ... Algonquin (or Algonkin) is an Algonquian language closely related to Ojibwe. ...

Linguistic Roman Orthographies

Smithsonian System

Bloomfield System

Syllabary

Ojibwe Syllabics

See Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics for a more in-depth discussion of the Ojibwe syllabary and related scripts

The Ojibwe Syllabary — shown with Eastern A-Final and pre-glyph W. (Adapted from the charts of Rand Valentine and Language Geek)

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 ten basic symbols <∅ p t k ch m n s sh y> called "initials," which indicate the initial consonant of the syllable, used in conjuction with two alphabetic diacritcs <h w> called "medials." The <∅> character serves as a no-consonant character, and as a glottal stop character in some communities. The "initials" 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. Canadian aboriginal syllabic writing (often syllabics for short) is a family of writing schemes which are used to write a number of aboriginal Canadian languages from the Algonquian, Athabaskan and Inuit language families. ... The Ojibwe syllabary I, the creator of this image, hereby release it into the public domain. ... The Ojibwe syllabary I, the creator of this image, hereby release it into the public domain. ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ...

There are 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. Two major group of finals exists. "Eastern finals" is characterized by resembling a supercripted form of the initial, most commonly in the a direction, though other directions may be found. "Western finals" are characterised by having shapes independent of the initials.

The fortis consonants are generally not distinguished in the common unpointed writing from the lenis ones, and thus both /d/ (<t>) and /t/ (<ht>) 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 in most communities, but in some, a superscripted <i> is used as a glottal stop character.

Not shown in the sample table are the characters representing non-Ojibwe sounds <f th l r>. All syllabics-using Ojibwe communities use <p> with an internal ring to represent <f>, typically ᕓ, ᕕ, ᕗ, ᕙ and ᕝ, and use <t> with an internal ring to represent <th>, typically ᕞ, ᕠ, ᕤ, ᕦ and ᕪ, but variations do exist on the placement of the internal ring. However, method of representing <l> and <r> varies much greatly across the communities using Ojibwe syllabics.

The syllabics-using communities can be classified into:

• Finals use
  • Eastern A-Finals—consonant in a-direction shown as a superscript; most common finals in use
  • Eastern I-Finals—consonant in i-direction shown as a superscript; used in some communities of Ontario and Quebec
  • Eastern Mixed Finals—consonant in i-, o- or a-direction shown as a superscript with choice dependent upon the word's root; typically found in James Bay Cree influenced communities
  • Western Finals—typically found in Saulteaux (ᑊ <p>, ᐟ <t>, ᐠ <k>, ᐨ <ch>, ᒼ <m>, ᐣ <n>, ᐢ <s>, ᐡ <sh> and ᕀ <y>)
• W-dot positioning
  • pre-glyph—most commonly associated with Eastern communities (ᐌ)
  • post-glyph—most commonly associated with Western communities (ᐍ)
• L/R representation
  • independent Sigma form—shaped like Greek capital letter sigma (ᓬ for <l> and ᕒ for <r>).
  • nesting Sigma form—similar to above, but nesting on the N-shape with superscripted sigma-form alone as finals
  • N-shape modified form—most common form, created by an erasure of part of the N-form (ᓓ ᓕ ᓗ ᓚ ᓪ for <l> and ᕃ ᕆ ᕈ ᕋ ᕐ for <r>)
  • Roman Catholic form—most often found in western communities (ᕃ ᕆ ᕊ ᕍ ᔆ for <l> and ᖊ ᖋ ᖌ ᖍ ᙆ for <r>)

Not part of the Unicode standard, thus not shown in the sample table above, is an obsolete set of syllabics form representing šp-series, or the sp-series in those communities where <š> have merged with <s>. Originally this series looked like "Z" or "N" and had the same orientation scheme as ᔐ <še>, ᔑ, <ši> ᔓ <šo> and ᔕ <ša>. This obsolete set has been replaced with either ᔥᐯ/ᐡᐯ <špe>, ᔥᐱ/ᐡᐱ <špi>, ᔥᐳ/ᐡᐳ <špo> and ᔥᐸ/ᐡᐸ <špa> or by ᐢᐯ <spe>, ᐢᐱ <spi>, ᐢᐳ <spo> and ᐢᐸ <spa>. Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

Also, not shown are the alternate <y>, written as a superscripted w-dot or w-ring, depending on if a medial or a final respectively, in words where <w> have transformed into <y>. In Evans' design, the y-dot was part of the original syllabics set, but due to ease of confusion between it and the w-dot in handwritten documents, most community abandoned the y-dot in favour of the y-cross (ᕀ), which is still being used among communities using Western Finals.

Great Lakes Aboriginal Syllabics

See Great Lakes Aboriginal Syllabics for a more in-depth discussion of the Odawa syllabary and related scripts

The Great Lakes Aboriginal Syllabics, also called the "Pa-Pe-Pi-Po Alphabet", used by the Odawa was similar to those used by the Potawatomi, with an added optional "H" used after the vowel element to represent long vowels. Great Lakes Aboriginal Syllabics is a Latin-based syllabic system used by the the Native Americans tribes surrounding the Great Lakes. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...

See also

• Ojibwe language

Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa or Anishinaabemowin in Eastern 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). ...

References

• Baraga, Frederic. 1878. A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, explained in English. Montréal: Beauchemin & Valois.
• Cuoq, Jean André. 1866. Études philologiques sur quelques langues sauvages de l'Amérique. Montréal: Dawson.
• Cuoq, Jean André. 1886. Lexique de la Langue Algonquine. Montréal: J. Chapleau & Fils.
• Cuoq, Jean André. 1891? Grammaire de la Langue Algonquine. [S.l.: s.n.]
• Fiero, Charles. 1976. "Style Manual for Syllabics." in Promoting Native Writing Systems in Canada. Barbara Burnaby ed. Toronto: OISE Press
• Furtman, Michael. 2000. Magic on the Rocks. Birch Portage Press.
• Nichols, John D. and Earl Nyholm. 1995. A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Rhodes, Richard A. 1985. Eastern Ojibwa-Chippewa-Ottawa Dictionary. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

External links

• Ojibwe Language Society
  • OLS Miinawaa — Yahoo Group extension of the Ojibwe Language Society
• Rand Valentine's introduction to Ojibwe
• Grammar, lessons, and dictionaries
• Freelang Ojibwe Dictionary — Freeware off-line dictionary, updated with additional entries every 6-10 weeks.
• Kevin L. Callahan's An Introduction to Ojibway Culture and History
• Language Museum report for Ojibwe
• Aboriginal Languages of Canada — With data on speaker populations
• Language Geek Page on Ojibwe — Syllabary fonts and keyboard emulators are also available from this site.
• Ojibwe Toponyms
• Our Languages: Nakawē (Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre)
• Niizh Ikwewag — A short story in Ojibwe, originally told by Earl Nyholm, emeritus professor of Ojibwe at Bimidji State University.
• Ethnologue report for Ojibwe
• Native Languages: A Support Document for the Teaching of Language Patterns, Ojibwe and Cree
• BWCAW/Quetico Park Petroglyphs
• Bois Forte Petroglyphs
• Ontario Parks Petroglyph finder