Info
Because concepts in the Ojibwe language can’t always be translated into English, learning Ojibwe is critical to passing on our history and traditions from one generation to another. Values live on through the language and benefit everyone. Ojibwe is a descriptive language. For example, the Ojibwe word odaabaan-wigamig, which English translation is “garage”, actually means “a building where the car is kept”.
The Ojibwe language is thousands of years old and very specific in meaning. There is no way to ask generic questions. With the English language “double meanings” are common.
There is no standard writing system in Ojibwe because only recently has the Ojibwe language begun to be written down. Some people us “phonetics” while others use “syllabic” and others use the “double vowel system”. No one way is right or wrong. The information contained here uses the double vowel system which was developed in the later twentieth center by Charles Fiero and John Nichols. The main idea is that the letters represent Ojibwe sounds, not English.
Like many Native American languages, Ojibwe language is polysynthetic, meaning it exhibits a great deal of synthesis and a very high morpheme-to-word ratio. Verbs constitute the most complex word class. Verbs are inflected for one of three orders (indicative -- also called the independent order, conjunct, used for participles and in subordinate clauses, and imperative, used with commands), as negative or affirmative, and for the person, number, animacy, and proximate/ obviative status of both its subject and object, as well as for several different modes and tenses.
In general, the language is notable for its relative lack of borrowing from other languages. Instead, speakers prefer to create words for new concepts from existing vocabulary. For example in Ojibwemowin, "airplane" is bemisemagak, literally "thing that flies" (from bimisemagad, "to fly"), and "battery" is ishkode-makakoons, literally "little fire-box" (from ishkode, "fire," and makak, "box"). These new words vary from region to region, and occasionally from community to community. In NW Ontario Ojibwemowin, "airplane" is ombaasijigan, literally "device that gets uplifted by the wind" (from ombaasin, "to be uplifted by the wind") as opposed to the bemisemagak.
Like any language with dialects spanning vast regions, some words that may have identical meaning at one time and have evolved into different meanings today. For example, zhooniyaans (literally "small amount of money" and used to refer to coins) specifically means "dime" in the US, but "quarter" in CA.
There are too many pronunciation rules to discuss on one website, but here I have tried to highlight some of the key points to get started in learning the language.
Our elders will tell you: "know your language"......