Saturday, September 8, 2018

Some Facts About The Ojibwe Language

By Ryan Harris


The Ojibwe were a race of people who used to live in Canada in Ontario up until the US border somewhere in Montana and Michigan. They were a race of people who spoke the Ojibwe language, which is one of the rarest languages in the world as it is the native tongue of the older generation wherein the current generation don't practice it anymore. Here are a few things one might find interesting about this lost dialect.

Now, just to give an idea, this race of people are also known as the Anishinaabemowin or the Ojibway. As mentioned above, they settle in various places through Canada up until the US borders. They live near the Great Lakes making that area their main settlement or home town. Their dialect is known as the Central Algonquian language, previously used by all tribes in that area.

Unfortunately though, this dialect is actually close to being endangered, as announced by the state of Minnesota. It is actually quite sad that it was already added to the Atlas of Worlds Languages in Danger because only the previous generations are the ones who use it. While the baby boomers of that heritage may understand, they do not really speak it nor teach it to their children.

Of course, this prompted a lot of groups to try and revive as well as preserve the dialect by opening schools that teach it. What these schools aim to do is to get the next generation to try to learn how to read and write it so that it will still be there for the next generations. With that, these groups were able to come up with the Ojibway Peoples Dictionary which was used for these lessons.

For those who are new to this dialect, it is interesting to know that it makes use of a double vowel system instead of a single one like the English alphabet. So it is normal to see two vowels or even consonants together but used as a single unit. There is also an apostrophe that one can find there symbolizing a glottal stop in a sentence.

The alphabet consists of twenty four letters with a few of them not being found in the English language. To give one an idea, the letters that one can find in this alphabet are the regular letters of the alphabet and letters with the two consonants making a different sound compared to the single vowels. There is also the an aa, ee, oo, and ii which are part of the double vowel system.

There are also the nasal vowels in the alphabet. These include the aanh, oonh, eenh and the iinh. These, as the name implies, are nasal vowels that give off a nasal sound when one pronounces them.

Basically, these are some things to know about the Ojibway dialect. While it is about to be endangered, many people are trying to bring it back. This is to ensure the preservation of the culture of the people who used to live along the Great Lake area.




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