Native Languages of the Americas: Chippewa
(Ojibway, Anishinaabe, Ojibwa)
Language:: The Ojibwe language--otherwise anglicized as Chippewa, Ojibwa or Ojibway and known to its own speakers as Anishinabe or Anishinaabemowin--is an Algonquian tongue spoken by 50,000 people in the northern United States and southern Canada. There are five main dialects of Ojibwe: Western Ojibwe, Eastern Ojibwe, Northern Ojibwe (Severn Ojibwe or Oji-Cree), Southern Ojibwe (Minnesota Ojibwe or Chippewa), and Ottawa (Odawa or Odaawa). The Ottawa have always been politically independent from the Ojibwe, but their language is essentially the same--speakers of all five dialects, including Ottawa, can understand each other readily. Many linguists also consider the Algonquin language to be an Ojibwe dialect, but it has diverged more and is difficult for Western Ojibwe speakers to understand. As its name suggests, Oji-Cree has borrowed many elements from Cree and is often written in the Cree syllabary rather than the English alphabet. On the whole Ojibwe is among the heartiest of North American languages, with many children being raised to speak it as a native language.
People: Along with the Cree, the Ojibwe are one of the most populous and widely distributed Indian groups in North America, with 150 bands throughout the north-central United States and southern Canada. Ojibwe and Chippewa are renderings of the same Algonquian word, "puckering," probably referring to their characteristic moccasin style. "Chippewa" is more commonly used in the United States and "Ojibway" or "Ojibwe" in Canada, but the Ojibwe people themselves use their native word Anishinabe (plural: Anishinabeg), meaning "original people." The Saulteaux and Mississauga are subtribes of the Ojibwe; the Ottawa, though they are closely related and speak the same language, have long held the status of a distinct tribe. Today there are 200,000 Ojibwe Indians living throughout their traditional territories.
History: The Ojibwe and Ottawa Indians are members of a longstanding alliance also including the Potawatomi tribe. Called the Council of Three Fires, this alliance was a powerful one which clashed with the mighty Iroquois Confederacy and the Sioux, eventually getting the better of both. The Ojibwe people were less devastated by European epidemics than their densely-populated Algonquian cousins to the east, and they resisted manhandling by the whites much better. Most of their lands were appropriated by the Americans and Canadians, a fate shared by all native peoples of North America, but plans to deport the Ojibwe to Kansas and Oklahoma never succeeded, and today nearly all Ojibwe reservations are within their original territory.
