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Ojibwe: Culture & Writing

Rand Valentine

Language Endangerment

Language Endangerment

Of the 6,000 languages listed in Ethnologue (Grimes 1992) forwhich there are population figures, 52% are spoken by less than 10,000 people; 28% by less than 1,000; and 83% are restricted to single countries, and so are

particularly exposed to the policies of a single government. 10% are spoken by less than 100 speakers

At the other end of the scale, 10 major languages, eachspoken by over 109 million people, are the mothertongues of almost half (49%) of the world's population.There is agreement among linguists who have considered thesituation that over half of the world's languages are moribund,i.e. not effectively being passed on to the next generation. Weand our children, then, are living at the point in human historywhere, within perhaps two generations, most languages in theworld will die out. (Adapted from the Manifesto of theFoundation for Endangered Languages; Iatiku #2, p.2.)

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Language Trajectory

Global and Local

Globalization is very importantly arelationship between the global and thelocal. The key issues often involve how thelocal fares as it interacts with the global.

Algonquian Language Family

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Words from some AlgonquianLanguages...

Numbers of Speakers: Algonquian

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Borrowings into English

• moose - Natick moos• woodchuck - Algonquian otchek• muskrat - Natick musquash + 'rat' pemmican - Cree pimikân• skunk - Massachuset squnck• wapiti - Shawnee wapiti 'white rump‘• squash - Massachuset asko:o:tasquash• moccasin - Natick mohkussin• tomahawk - Algonquian tamahaac• toboggan - Micmac toba:kan• totem - Ojibwa ninto:te:m• squaw - Massachuset squa• wampum - Algonquian wampumpeage• wickiup - Fox wikiyapi• wigwam - Abnaki wikewam• caucus - Algonquian caucauasu 'counselor'• Great Spirit - loan translation of Ojibwa kitchi manitou

Placenames

Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin

Manhattan

Milwaukee, Chicago, Wausau

Mississippi

Ojibwe

An Algonquian language spoken inMichigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana,Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba,Saskatchewan, Alberta and BritishColumbia.

Also spelled Ojibwa, Ojibway, Chippewa Spoken in many dialects: Algonquin,

Nipissing, Ojibwe, Mississauga, Odawa,Saulteaux, Oji-Cree, etc.

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Ojibwe Dialects

Land and Language: Two (Niizh/Niizhin)

Two

Three (Niswi vs. Nisin)

Three

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Isogloss Bundles

Two

Three

Social Interaction

Crucifix / Cross

Ojibwe Morphology: Derivation

Geographical Terms -(aa)gamaa, ‘pertaining to lakes’

waasaagamaa ‘the waves froth white on the lake’

zhaaboondegamaa ‘the lake is navigable for its whole length’

-aagonagaa, ‘pertaining to snow conditions’zeseganaagonagaa ‘there is grainy snow under hard surface’

minwaagonagaa ‘the snow is favorably textured for walking’

-izikwaa, ‘pertaining to ice conditions’gaakaabizigwaa ‘the ice creaks & makes cracking noises’

ogijizigwaa ‘the ice is suspended over the water at breakup’

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Derivation: Classifiers

/-aabik-/ ‘inorganic solid’ (rock, glass, plastic)dakwaabikizi ‘be short (something mineral)

/-aakw-/ ‘organic solid’ (bone, tooth, horn)dakwaakozi ‘be short (something stick or treelike)

/-eg-/ ‘sheetlike’dakwegizi ‘be short (something sheetlike)

/-aabiig-/ ‘stringlike’dakwaabiigizi ‘be short (something stringlike)

/-minag-/ ‘berrylike’*dakominagizi ‘be short (something berrylike)

Ojibwe Semantics

Terms for people at various ages... English

baby

boy girl

young man young woman

man woman

old man old woman

Ojibwe abinoojiiyens

gwiiwizens ikwezens

oshkinawe oshkiniijikwe

inini ikwe

akiwenzii mindimooye gichi-ahaa gichi-ikwe

The term for‘year’ in Ojibweis biboon, whichalso means‘winter.’

Ojibwe Morphology: Inflection

Ojibwe has a stunningly complex inflectionalmorphology for verbs, marking (partial list)... subject [1s, 2s, 3s, 4s/p, 1p, 21, 2p, 3p, 0s, 0p, X] direct object [ditto] tense (past, present, future) aspect (completed or not; conjecture or not) direction (towards speaker, away from, all around, etc.) positive/negative prepositional notions (like, so, from, to, as much, as many...) completely different system for verbs in main clauses, vs

subordinate clauses, vs commands

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Language and Land

Petition on birchbark

In the month of January, 1849, a delegation ofeleven Chippewas, from Lake Superior,presented themselves at Washington, who, amidother matters not well digested in their minds,asked the government for a retrocession ofsome portion of the lands which the nation hadformerly ceded to the United States, at a treatyconcluded at Lapointe, in Lake Superior, in 1842.They were headed by Oshcabawiss, a chief froma part of the forest-country, called by themMonomonecau, on the head-waters of the RiverWisconsin.

Petition in Detail

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Letter of Invitation

Writing among N.A. aboriginal languages

Came about through three avenues... 1. introduced from the outside, often by

missionaries

2. created by native speakers, who modifiedsystems developed by Europeans.

3. developed by native speakers, afterwitnessing writing in a European language

Sequoyah

Cherokee, inventor ofthe Cherokeesyllabary

Born: 1776 nearTuskeegee,TennesseeDied: 1843, nearTyler, Texas.

Monolingual, illiterateCherokee speaker

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The development & spread of writing...

Working as a silversmith, Sequoyah wasenjoined to sign his name to his works; later, asa soldier, he regretted the fact that Cherokeespeakers weren’t able to write letters home,send communications, etc.

Sequoyah invented a syllabic system and gave apowerful demonstration of its effectiveness to agroup of Cherokee leaders in New Echota,Georgia, in 1821

Within a few months, thousands of Cherokeeswere literate in the system, have taught eachother in informal contexts (there were noclassrooms).

Using writing...

“People wrote letters, kept accounts, and copied sacredsongs and curing formulas. A weekly newspaper, TheCherokee Phoenix, was printed by the Cherokeenational press as early as 1828.”

The press was confiscated by the Georgia Guard in1835, as part of a forced removal of Cherokees toOklahoma.

The press was immediately re-established in Indianterritory (Oklahoma) in 1835, and between 1835-1861produced 13,980,000 pages of books, tracts, pamplets,and passages from the Bible..., an Annual Almanac, TheCherokee Messenger, a bi-monthly religious magazine,as well as many other publications.

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Source of letters...

Many of Sequoyah’s letters resemble Englishcapital letters, but their values in Cherokee haveno relationship to English capitals.

Some letters appear to be borrowed fromGreek.

Some letters appear to be borrowed from theCyrillic alphabet, used to write Slavic languages.

Other letters are unrelated to the writing systemsof any known languages.

Uses of the syllabary

“Since the Cherokee nation was dissolved andincorporated into the state of Oklahoma at the of the 19th

century, the Cherokee syllabary functioned only in twomajor areas of Cherokee life:

1. Participation in religious activities particularly, reading Bible verses in church

2. The practice of Indian medicine Cherokee doctors record their curing practices in

handwritten Cherokee for his own future reference. Readingis for content, to make a record of given curing practices.

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James Evans and Ojibwe Syllabics

James Evans was born in1801 in Hull, and namedfor his father, a merchantcaptain. Although eager toenter a similar careerwhen he was young,James Evans wasdiscouraged from the seaby the experience ofsailing with his father, andwas to return to his studiesafter only two voyages.

A missionary life...

In 1820 Evan's family moved to La Chute, Québec,while James remained in England to try his hand atbusiness. When he later emigrated in 1822, hetaught at L'Orignal and met the woman he wouldwed, Mary Blithe Smith. After two years the couplemoved to Augusta, Upper Canada, where Jamesmade the decision to enter into missionary work,teaching among the Ojibway Indians.

Writing in Ojibwe

In 1827, James Evans received the responsibility of themission post at Rice Lake. After a year there were some40 native students, half of whom could read English.Evans himself was becoming familiar with the locallanguages, and wrote in Ojibwe, and in 1830 waspreaching sermons in the local Ojibwe language. By1831, Evans had produced an original orthography andthe beginnings of a writing system for the nativelanguages to replace the only current representation forthe language which was in the Latin script. As the Ojibwewere being taught both in English and in their owntongue, it was confusing for them to use the same script,especially as English was so different from Ojibwe.

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Syllabics is born...

Evans devised a new syllabic system,probably borrowing the idea fromSequoyah’s system for Cherokee. Evansalso used shorthhand symbols he hadlearned in England.

However, the new syllabic script wasrejected by the Toronto Bible Society.

Norway House, Manitoba

In 1840, after two years of expedition andmissionary work around Lake Superior,Evans was appointed to the post ofGeneral Superintendent of the North WestIndian missions. To take up his new post,he moved to Norway House, on the shoresof Playgreen Lake about 650km north ofWinnipeg, Manitoba, arriving there inAugust of 1840.

Thinking about Syllabics

Evans was interested in sharing hisChristianity with Cree people who tradedat Norway House, but Cree traders onlyspent a very short time at the post beforereturning to the bush. So he needed asystem that could be learned quickly.

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James Frere

There was a greatinterest in developingpractical writing systemsin the early 1800’s.

In 1837, James Freredeveloped a systemusing simplified symbols,which could all be madewith a single stroke, foruse with blind people.

Cree Syllabics

So Evans invented a syllabic system thathad simple symbols, and went further, bymaking his system extremely rational.Basically, each symbol represented aconsonant + vowel combination.

The consonant value was indicated by theshape of the character.

The vowel was indicated by theorientation of the character.

Shapes and Orientations

/e/ /i/ /o/ /a/

I I K k

/t/ Y y H!!! h

/p/ U u J j

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Shapes and Orientations

/e/ /i/ /o/ /a/

I i K k

/t/ Y y H h

/p/ U u J j

Orientation II

/e/ /i/ /o/ /a/

k R r F f

c Q q A a

m W w S s

n E e D d

Orientation II

/e/ /i/ /o/ /a/

k R r F f

c Q q A a

m W w S s

n E e D d

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Awenen niin?

Awenen niin?

Awenen niin?

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Syllabics in Madison??!!!!

Writing /h/ (or glottal stop)

The sound /h/ (or glottal stop in somedialects) is written as a separate character,¿, as in:

mazina’ige ‘write’

sod¿iR

Awenen niin?

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Finals

Finals are small characters used torepresent consonants at the end of asyllable.

There is an Eastern and a Western set. The Eastern are little versions of the ‘a’ series

The Western are special little symbols,involving a half-circle and a small stroke.

Awenen niin?

Awenen niin?

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Dealing with w

The sound /w/ has a special status insyllabics, being indicated with a dot that... ... precedes the syllable it’s associated with in

the Eastern tradition.

... follows the syllable it’s associated with in theWestern tradition.

Abwi ‘paddle’

1. pull out the /w/ and you have a – bi

2a. if using Eastern tradition, write:

kCu2b. if using Western tradition, write:

kuC

Bakwezhigan ‘bread’

Write this in Eastern...

Write this in Western...

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Awenen niin?

Punctuation

The only punctuation character commonlyused is that for a period, spelled .

Ajidamoog wiisiniwag. ‘the squirrels areeating’

kqhSç iCoekCç.

Problems with Syllabics...

Syllabics serves an extremely importantfunction among northern Ojibwe and Creepeople, in that it is used as the principalwriting system.

The biggest problem with Syllabics is thatyou must be fluent in the language inorder to read it, because a single CVsymbol can stand for four distinct syllablesin Ojibwe...

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Ojibwe Phonology: Southern DialectsConsonant Phonemes

stops/aff, +vce b d j g

stops/aff, -vce p t ch k‘/h

fricatives, +vce z zh

fricatives, -vce s sh

nasals m n

glides w y

Vowel PhonemesShort a i o e

Long aa ii oo

Ojibwe Phonology: Northern Dialects

Consonantsstops/aff p t ch k h

fricatives s/sh

nasals m n

glides w y

VowelsShort a i o e

Long aa ii oo

Relationship of Northern to Southern

Southern Northern Southern Northern Englishb p abi api sitp hp apii ahpii whend t adik atihk caribout ht mitig mihtik treeg k gaag kaak porcupinek hk makwa mahkwa bearj c jiimaan ciimaan boatch hc miigwech miikwehc thanksz s zoogipon sookihpon snowss hs asab ahsap netzh sh zhigwa shikwa andsh hsh mishi mihshi firewood

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u

This symbol stands for /bi/ in ku abi ‘ANsg is sitting’

This symbol stands for /bii/ in kuh√ abiitaw‘share a house with AN’

This symbol stands for /pi/ in ju baapi ‘ANsg is laughing’

This symbol stands for /pii/ in ku apii ‘when’

Diacritics to the Rescue

Syllabics can be made fully phonemic inits representation with diacritics: Use ¿ before a “hard/voiceless” consonant

Put a dot over any syllabic when its vowel islong:

ku vs k¿∫

Problems with learning...

The ambiguity in unpointed Syllabicswould not be so much of a problem if itwere not for the fact that Ojibwe is soendangered, and that so many people inthe south do not speak the language, butwant to learn.

However, lots of aboriginal languages inCanada use syllabics as an act of identity,to distance their writing from English andFrench scripts.

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The Origin & Identity of Syllabics

Many Cree and Ojibwe people claim that Syllabics wasnot invented by James Evans: Syllabics are characters attached with alphabetical sounds.

Historians credit the invention of Syllabics in 1840 to JamesEvans, a Methodist Minister. Cree Legends hold a differentversion. Cree Legend indicates that the syllabic characters werea gift from Kisemanito (Creator) to the Cree people. Kisemanitois said to have given the characters to two Elders namely;Mistanaskowew and Machiminahtik. Mistanaskowew, BadgerBull, was from Western Canada while Machiminahtik, HuntingRod, was from Eastern Canada. These two Elders received thisgift of Syllabics at the same time but independently of each other.James Evans learned about Syllabics from these Elders He usedthese Syllabics in the teaching of Christianity to Native People.(from a website)

Another Cree Account

A similar legendary account is provided in VerneDusenberry’s The Montana Cree (Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 1998:267-268):

According to the Montana Cree, the spirits came to onegood man and gave him some songs. When he hadmastered them, they taught him how to make a type ofink and then showed him how to write on white birchbark. He was told that he must not put down any badwords, for there was great power in his writing. Hence hemust exercise every care in the subject matter that hewrote. For a long time, he possessed this ability to writeand guarded his secret carefully.

Cont...

The man grew old. Finally, another spirit came to him and gave himfurther instruction. This spirit wrote down the names or the initials ofall the spirits. When that was done, the spirit showed the old manhow to make a little book out of birch bark and how to fasten it ontoa piece of wood. In this book, the old man wrote what amounted to aCree Bible under the direction of the spirit. He recorded all of thethings that that happened from the time of Creation down to thepresent. He faithfully detailed all of the teachings of Ki-sei-men’-toso that there was a record of how the Creator wanted his people tolive properly. Toward the end of the instruction period, the spiritmentioned the Wind and said that the Wind was the last of thestrong spirits. It can teach man many things, said the spirit, who alsowarned that the Wind can destroy. The old man put all this materialtogether in his little birch-bark book and returned to his people. Fromtime to time on his way home, he stopped and read all of thematerial.

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Cont.

When the old man returned to his camp, he taught the people how to readand write. The Cree were very pleased with their new accomplishment, forby now the white men were in this country. The Cree knew that the whitetraders could read and write, so now they felt that they too were able tocommunicate among themselves just as well as did their white neighbors.More than that, they were particularly proud of this splendid record, directlyfrom a spirit who had dictated the teachings of Ki-sei-men’-to. Time went on.The old man died. Before his death, however, he gave this book to one ofhis friends. No one knows just what happened from then on, but some yearslater someone else secured the book, took it to the missionaries, and readthe material in it to them. The missionaries dismissed the good teachingscontemptuously and were interested only in learning how to read and writethe text. The man, who could read the script, taught the missionaries theform. Soon, the missionaries began using this method to write down theirBible, and then started teaching that material to the Cree. Some time later,the same white people claimed that they had invented the form of writingthat the Cree use. “That is not so,” says Raining Bird emphatically. “Thewhite men got the material from that man who stole it.”

Other Evidence...

Hiawatha (H. W. Longfellow)

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,By the shining Big-Sea-Water,Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.Dark behind it rose the forest,Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,Rose the firs with cones upon them;Bright before it beat the water,Beat the clear and sunny water,Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

Gichigami,‘Lake

Superior’

Nookomis,‘my

grandmother’

Meter from Finnish epicpoem, Kalevala

Lönnrot, after the style of the rune singers, tells of his yearning to sing the poems of hispeople. The intimate relationship between poetry and nature is portrayed with images ofnature singing; for example, the frost sings verses and the raindrops recite poems.Creation and the Birth of Väinämöinen. Ilmatar, the virgin of the air, leaves the lonelinessof the sky and moves down to the sea, where the wind impregnates her.

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Tom Thomson & The Group of 7

In 1920, J.E.H.MacDonald, LawrenHarris, A.Y. Jackson,Arthur Lismer, FranklinCarmichael, F.H. Varleyand Frank Johnstonofficially formed this nowfamous group. Thesewere painters bitten bythe Canadian north who,for the first time, took onthe task of painting thegreat power, scenery andspirit of the land.

Tom Thomson: The West Wind

Tom Thomson: Canoe Lake

Thomsondrowned in CanoeLake in July,1917.

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An Ice Covered Lake (Tom Thomson)

Quebec Landscape (A. Y. Jackson)

Spring Snow (Frank Johnston)

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September Gale, Georgian Bay

Arthur Lismer

North Shore, Lake Superior

Lawren Harris

North Shore, Lake Superior (Harris)

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Norval Morrisseau

“Norval Morrisseau is generally regarded asthe founder of a new art movement,sometimes called the Woodlands School, or(less accurately) the Legend Paintingmovement. In this art, traditionalAnishnaabe sacred iconography that hadhistorically been expressed in rock art andincised birchbark ... scrolls was reinscribedin the Western media of easel painting andprintmaking.”

“The Greatest Canadian Artist”

“Norval Morrisseau is the most original andimportant artist, native or otherwise thatCanada has produced. Norval was the firstto paint the ancient myths and legends ofthe eastern woodlands, stories previouslypassed down by the oral tradition. He spenthis youth in remote isolation in northernOntario, near Thunder Bay, where hisartistic style developed without the usualinfluences of other artist's imagery. As thesoul (sic) originator of his "Woodland" stylehe has become an inspiration to threegenerations of artists.” (from a websiteeulogy)

Ojibwa Floral

“... From this point onhe signed his work withhis new Ojibwa name'Copper Thunderbird',using Indian syllabics.”

klkCuFuEo

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Loons IV (Jackson Beardy)

“In the 1970's animportant group ofAboriginal artists formedin Winnipeg, callingthemselves "the IndianGroup of Seven".Artists Jackson Beardy,Carl Ray, EddyCobiness and DaphneOdjig were part of thismovement, and areknown for being the firstartists to interpret oralstories through paintand canvas. “

Carl Ray

Interchanges: Point, Counterpoint

The interchange of graphical traditions hasproduced an immensely important dialogue incontemporary Canada.

written English – Sequoyah – CherokeeSyllabary – James Evans – Ojibwe/CreeSyllabary

land – pictography – art as personal expression– art as “nation”al expression – art as culturaltreasure and expression of Canada

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Language and Technology

Many problems arise when one attemptsto use a non-Roman script on a computer: You need a special font.

There is rarely cross-platform compatibility.

Keyboard layouts vary wildly.

Characters often map to English punctuation,creating editing problems.

There is usually no system-level support ofyour script and language.

One Keyboard Layout...

I I

ii

Kk k K

The Unicode Standard

“The Unicode Standard is a charactercoding system designed to support theworldwide interchange, processing, anddisplay of the written texts of the diverselanguages of the modern world. In addition,it supports classical and historical texts ofmany written languages.” (fromwww.unicode.org)

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The Problem of Obsolescence

The year is 2045, and my grandchildren (as yet unborn)are exploring the attic of my house (as yet unbought).They find a letter dated 1995 and a CD-ROM (compactdisk). The letter claims that the disk contains a documentthat provides the key to obtaining my fortune (as yetunearned).

My grandchildren are understandably excited, but theyhave never seen a CD before—except in oldmovies—and even if they can somehow find a suitabledisk drive, how will they run the software necessary tointerpret the information on the disk? How can they readmy obsolete digital document? [Jeff Rothenburg]

Electronic Media vs Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs Provincial Park is locatednear Peterborough, Ontario. It is the siteof a vast number of petroglyphs, which,according to archeologists, were likelycarved by Algonkian-speaking Aboriginalpeople between 600 and 1,100 yearsago.

Technology and the local...

According to a leading expert on electronic storage, in less than 10years mankind will have the capability to store all of its knowledgeon a cube that can fit in the palm of a hand. But what good will thatdo us if we can't access the information in 20 years?

As we develop technology, we face many issues: older data formats quickly become obsolete, because both the

hardware and software (operating systems and software) used to readthem are no longer available textual representation audio representation video representation

Technology, which allows for globalization, potentially does adouble-whammy on local information: it supplants it on one level,and damages the capacity to store it on another.

But technology also greatly empowers people by allowing for thereplication and distribution of materials.

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Studying Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin)

You can take four semesters of Ojibwe atthe University of Wisconsin, and satisfyyour undergraduate languagerequirements.

The American Indian Studies Programoffers many other courses focusing onNorth American history, culture, and socialissues.