User:Jomeara421/Ottawa Class

Classification and other dialects of Ojibwa
Ottawa is a dialect of the Ojibwa language, a member of the Algonquian language family. Algonquian is itself a member of the Algic language family, the other Algic languages being Wiyot and Yurok. Ottawa is generally recognized as one of the Ojibwe dialects that has innovated the most, along with Severn Ojibwa and Algonquin. Proto-Algonquian is the reconstructed ancestor language from which the daughter languages descend. The consensus view of the history of the Algonquian family is that there is one recognized genetic subgroup, Eastern Algonquian, from which approximately seventeen Eastern Algonquian languages descend, and that the remaining Algonquian languages descend directly from Proto-Algonquian.

Ojibwa is a Central Algonquian language, along with Fox, Cree, Menominee, Miami-Illinois, Potawatomi, and Shawnee. Central Algonquian is a geographical term of convenience, and its use does not entail that the Central languages descend from an intermediate common genetic subgroup.

Ojibwa is "...conventionally regarded as a single language consisting of a continuum of dialectal varieties since within each branch every dialect is at least partly intelligible to the speakers of the neighboring dialects." The degree of mutually intelligibility between nonadjacent dialects varies considerably; recent research has helped to show the extent of the distance between Ottawa and the maximally different Severn Ojibwa dialect spoken in northwestern Ontario. The development of Ojibwa dialects with lower degrees of mutual intelligibility suggests that these dialects are emergent languages. The recognized dialects of Ojibwa are spoken in the region surrounding the Great Lakes, in Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, with other groups of speakers in southwestern Québec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and a few communities in Alberta. While there is some variation in the classification of Ojibwe dialects, at a minimum the following are recognized, proceeding west to east: Western Ojibwe (Saulteaux), Southwestern Ojibwa (Chippewa), Northwestern Ojibwa, Severn Ojibwa (Oji-Cree), Ottawa (Odawa), Eastern Ojibwa, and Algonquin. Based upon contemporary field research, Valentine (1994) also recognizes several other dialects: Berens Ojibwe in northwestern Ontario, which he distinguishes from Northwestern Ojibwe; North of (Lake) Superior; and Nipissing. The latter two cover approximately the same territory as Central Ojibwa, which he does not recognize.

Ojibwe and Potawatomi are frequently viewed as being more closely related to each than to other Algonquian languages. Ojibwe and Potawatomi have been proposed as likely candidates for forming a genetic subgroup within Proto-Algonquian, although the required research to ascertain the linguistic history and status of a hypothetical “Ojibwe-Potawatomi” subgroup has not yet been undertaken, "Ojibwe-Potawatomi is another possibility that awaits investigation." In a proposed consensus classification of Algonquian languages, Goddard (1996) classifies Ojibwa and Potawatomi as "Ojibwayan."

The Central languages share a significant number of common features. These features can generally attributed to diffusion of features through borrowing: “Extensive lexical, phonological, and perhaps grammatical borrowing—the diffusion of elements and features across language boundaries—appears to have been the major factor in giving the languages in the area of the Upper Great Lakes their generally similar cast, and it has not been possible to find any shared innovations substantial enough to require the postulation of a genetically distinct Central Algonquian subgroup.”

Similarly, the possibility that the proposed genetic subgrouping of Ojibwa and Potawatomi can also be accounted for as diffusion has also been raised: “The putative Ojibwa-Potawatomi subgroup is similarly open to question, but cannot be evaluated with more information on Potawatomi dialects.”