Ottawa language

Ottawa
Nishnaabemwin, Daawaamwin
Native to	Canada, United States
Region	Ontario, Michigan, Oklahoma
Ethnicity	60,000 Ottawa (1999)
Native speakers	(13,000 cited 1990 census to 1996)
Language family	Algic Algonquian Central Ojibwe Ottawa
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	otta1242
Linguasphere	62-ADA-dd (Odawa)
Ottawa population areas in Ontario, Michigan and Oklahoma. Reserves/Reservations and communities shown in red.
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Ottawa (or Odawa) is a dialect of the Ojibwe language, spoken by the Ottawa people in southern Ontario in Canada, and northern Michigan in the United States. Descendants of migrant Ottawa speakers live in Kansas and Oklahoma. The first recorded meeting of Ottawa speakers and Europeans occurred in 1615 when a party of Ottawas encountered explorer Samuel de Champlain on the north shore of Georgian Bay. Ottawa is written in an alphabetic system using Latin letters, and is known to its speakers as Nishnaabemwin "speaking the native language" or Daawaamwin "speaking Ottawa".

Ottawa is one of the Ojibwe dialects that has undergone the most language change, although it shares many features with other dialects. The most distinctive change is a pervasive pattern of vowel syncope that deletes short vowels in many words, resulting in significant changes in their pronunciation. This and other innovations in pronunciation, in addition to changes in word structure and vocabulary, differentiate Ottawa from other dialects of Ojibwe.

Like other Ojibwe dialects, Ottawa grammar includes animate and inanimate noun gender, subclasses of verbs that are dependent upon gender, combinations of prefixes and suffixes that are connected with particular verb subclasses, and complex patterns of word formation. Ottawa distinguishes two types of third person in sentences: proximate, indicating a noun phrase that is emphasized in the discourse, and obviative, indicating a noun phrase that is less prominent. Ottawa has relatively flexible word order compared with languages such as English.