Ottawa population areas in Ontario, Michigan and Oklahoma. Reserves/Reservations and communities shown in red.
Ottawa is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Person
Odawa
Language
Daawaamwin
Ottawa or Odawa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language spoken by the Odawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma. The first recorded meeting of Ottawa speakers and Europeans occurred in 1615 when a party of Ottawas encountered explorer Samuel de Champlain on the north shore of Georgian Bay. Ottawa is written in an alphabetic system using Latin letters, and is known to its speakers as Nishnaabemwin 'speaking the native language' or Daawaamwin 'speaking Ottawa'.
Ottawa is one of the Ojibwe dialects that has undergone the most language change, although it shares many features with other dialects. The most distinctive change is a pervasive pattern of vowel syncope that deletes short vowels in many words, resulting in significant changes in their pronunciation. This and other innovations in pronunciation, in addition to changes in word structure and vocabulary, differentiate Ottawa from other dialects of Ojibwe.
Like other Ojibwe dialects, Ottawa grammar includes animate and inanimate noun gender, subclasses of verbs that are dependent upon gender, combinations of prefixes and suffixes that are connected with particular verb subclasses, and complex patterns of word formation. Ottawa distinguishes two types of third person in sentences: proximate, indicating a noun phrase that is emphasized in the discourse, and obviative, indicating a less prominent noun phrase. Ottawa has a relatively flexible word order compared with languages such as English.
Ottawa speakers are concerned that their language is endangered as the use of English increases and the number of fluent speakers declines. Language revitalization efforts include second language learning in primary and secondary schools.
^Ottawa dialect at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^"Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English". www.census.gov. Retrieved 2017-11-17.
^Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (2022-08-17). "Knowledge of languages by age and gender: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions". www150.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 2022-12-24.
Ottawa or Odawa is a dialect of the Ojibwe language spoken by the Odawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States...
the classification of its dialects, at least the following are recognized, from east to west: Algonquin, Eastern Ojibwe, Ottawa (Odawa), Western Ojibwe...
Michigan and Oklahoma (former Indian Territory, United States). The Ottawadialect is part of the Algonquian language family. This large family is made...
Algonquin Park. The Atlas of North American English identifies an Ottawa Valley traditional dialect enclave in Arnprior, which lacks the Canadian raising of /aʊ/...
declines between some non-adjacent dialects. Mutual intelligibility between some non-adjacent dialects, notably Ottawa, Severn Ojibwe, and Algonquin, is...
the Great Lakes script has also been attributed to speakers of the Ottawadialect of the Ojibwe language, but supporting evidence is weak. Consonant and...
phonological parameters. For example, the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects have changed relative to other dialects by adding a process of vowel syncope that...
dialect of Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), but use of this language has declined. This area around the Manistee River was long occupied by bands of Ottawa...
differences is used for several publications in the Ottawa and Eastern Ojibwe dialects (see below Ottawa-Eastern Ojibwe double vowel system). One of the goals...
he taught a field methods class with Andrew Medler, a speaker of the Ottawadialect who was born in Saginaw, Michigan, but spent most of his life on Walpole...
Ojibwe word ᐊᒋᑕᒨ ajidamoo (or possibly ajidamoonh, the same word in the Ottawadialect of Ojibwe), which translates literally as "one who descends trees headlong...
a dialect with an army and navy", sometimes called the Weinreich witticism, is a quip about the arbitrariness of the distinction between a dialect and...
Dialects are linguistic varieties that may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, and other aspects of grammar. For the classification of varieties...
considerable amount of vocabulary from Sauk. Like the Odawa language, or the Ottawadialect of the Anishinaabe language, the Potawatomi language exhibits a great...
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The Ottawa Valley is the valley of the Ottawa River, along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais, Quebec, Canada. The valley is the transition...
The Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma is one of four federally recognized Native American tribes of Odawa people in the United States. Its Algonquian-speaking ancestors...
described as "…a language with a restricted vocabulary drawn from the Ottawadialect of Ojibwe with a few words from the Fox language, another Algonquian...
Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. Other bands with federal status include the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma...
still exhibit strong correspondences, especially with the Odaawaa (Ottawa) dialect. "Tribal elder dies at 88: Woman was dedicated to Potawatomi language...
regular way'. This was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawadialect, and modified into ilinwe· (pluralized as ilinwe·k). The French borrowed...
is a Turkic dialect spoken in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and parts of Afghanistan by the Afshars. Ethnologue and Glottolog list it as a dialect of the South...
the local dialect as something separate from other forms of Inuktitut. In the Nunavik dialect, Inuktitut is called ` (ᐃᓄᑦᑎᑐᑦ). This dialect is also sometimes...
The Bandari dialect is one of the dialects of the Persian language spoken in Iran's Hormozgan province. Anonby, Erik, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali, et al. (eds...
approximated to be the word “mak-a-tew-gamie”, meaning “black water” in the Ottawadialect. Because they spoke oral languages, the name was written by the European...
⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. Ottawa (also spelled Odawa) is a dialect of the Ojibwe language spoken in a series of communities...
settlements. Ottawa Valley Twang is the accent, sometimes referred to as a dialect of English, that is spoken in the Ottawa Valley, in Ontario. The Ottawa Valley...
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