Ojibwe is an indigenous language of the Algonquian language family spoken in Canada and the United States in the areas surrounding the Great Lakes, and westward onto the northern plains in both countries, as well as in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Quebec.
Ojibwe words in this article are written in the practical orthography commonly known as the Double vowel system.
This article primarily uses examples from the Southwestern Ojibwe dialect spoken in Minnesota and Wisconsin, sometimes also known as Ojibwemowin.
Ojibwe dialects tend to have 29 phonemes: 11 vowels (seven oral and four nasal) and 18 consonants.
[3] The latter have been analysed both as underlying phonemes,[4] and also as predictable, that is derived by the operation of phonological rules from sequences of a long vowel followed by /n/ and another segment, typically /j/.
[5] The long nasal vowels are iinh ([ĩː]), enh ([ẽː]), aanh ([ãː]), and oonh ([õː]).
[7] Typical examples from Southwestern Ojibwe include: -iijikiwenh- ('brother'), -noshenh- ('cross-aunt'), -oozhishenh- ('grandchild') bineshiinh ('bird'), asabikeshiinh ('spider'), and awesiinh ('wild animal').
[8] One analysis of the Ottawa dialect treats the long nasal vowels as phonemic,[9] while another treats them as derived from sequences of long vowel followed by /n/ and underlying /h/; the latter sound is converted to [ʔ] or deleted.
The lenis consonants are often voiced, especially between vowels, although they often tend to be voiceless at the end of words.
This means that, for example, Southwestern Ojibwe wazhashk, ('muskrat') is pronounced the same as wazask in some dialects of Saulteaux.
Ojibwe in general permits relatively few consonant clusters, and most are only found word-medially.
The rules that determine which syllable receives the primary stress are quite complex and many words are irregular.
In general, though, the strong syllable in the third foot from the end of a word receives the primary stress.
Regular, pervasive syncope is a comparatively recent development, arising in the past eighty years or so[when?].