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Anishinaabemowin

Anishinaabemowin is the indigenous name used by the Anishinaabe peoples to refer to their languages. It literally means "original people's language." Since "Anishinaabe" is a general term used by several Algonquian speaking tribes of the Great Lakes and prairie regions, "Anishinaabemowin" (or one of its many spelling variants like Anishinabemowin, Anishnabemowin, Nishnaabemowin, etc) can sometimes be used to refer to more than one distinct language, such as the Ojibwe, Algonquin, Ottawa, Oji-Cree, or Potawatomi languages. These languages are all related but are not identical-- the situation is similar to languages like Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian in Europe, all of which share many features yet still are not interchangeable.

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Here are links to our webpages about the Anishinaabemowin languages and the people who speak them:

Ojibwe language
Algonquin language
Odawa language
Algonquian languages
Woodland Indians
Canada Native languages

And here are a few good books about Anishinaabemowin and the Anishinaabe people:
Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe
Odawa Language and Legends
Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin
Algonquian Spirit

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