Anishinaabemowin

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Anishinaabemowin is spoken in Canada and a few northern states in the U.S. The language is known by various names such as Chippewa, Saulteaux, Algonquian and others, however, it is known as Anishinaabemowin to its' speakers. Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario has some of the most fluent speakers of the language and boasts many new speakers over other Indigenous languages in Canada and U.S. Historically the language is written using syllabics and is still honoured to this day, however the language is predominately written using roman orthography.

At Indigenous Languages of Manitoba, we are committed and dedicated to the revitalization and preservation of Indigenous Languages and want to shed light on the dire situations that our languages are in;

Anishinaabemowin has 28 130 speakers in Canada (0.07% of the total population) (Statistics Canada, 2017), with 6 730 of those being in Manitoba (0.49% of the provincial population) (Statistics Canada, 2017). The language has a vitality rating of endangered (Ethnologue, n.d), as it is no longer the primary language that children use. Anishinaabemowin is considered in trouble (Ethnologue, n.d) because “intergenerational transmission” is in the process of being broken but there are fluent speakers who are of childbearing age.

References:

Statistics Canada. (October 25, 2017). Census in Brief: The Aboriginal languages of First 

Nations people, Métis, and Inuit. https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/as-sa/98-200-x/2016022/98-200-x2016022-eng.cfm. 

Statistics Canada. (2017). Census Profile, 2016 Census. 

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=46&Geo2=PR&Code2=01&SearchText=Manitoba&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Language&TABID=1&type=0. 

Ethnologue. (n.d) Ojibwa, Northwestern. 

https://www-ethnologue-com.uwinnipeg.idm.oclc.org/language/ojb.