Oji-Cree Language - Cree Influence

Cree Influence

Cree has historically had a significant cultural influence on Severn Ojibwa and its speakers. Cree Anglican catechists evangelized Severn Ojibwa speakers in the late nineteenth century. For example, Cree missionary William Dick established an Anglican mission in Severn Ojibwa territory at Big Trout Lake, where he served from the late nineteenth century until the early twentieth century (approximate dates 1887-1917). Although their language is clearly a dialect of Ojibwe, in the late 1970s, it was noted that "The northern bands of Northern Ojibwa prefer to be called Cree, a usage that has confused students and government officials: the Trout Lake, Deer Lake, and Caribou Lake bands of Northern Ojibwa are not distinguished from their Cree-speaking neighbors to the north in Canadian government publications …"

Referring specifically to grammatical features in Severn Ojibwe, research indicates that "… the amount of Cree influence on Ojibwe grammar actually appears rather small. The common designation of northern Ojibwe linguistic varieties is profoundly misleading in terms of the relative grammatical representation of each language in that these varieties are decidedly Ojibwe in structure."

Several different Cree dialects appear to have been sources of Severn Ojibwa vocabulary. For example, a layer of vocabulary items in Severn appears to be of Plains Cree origin, despite the fact that Severn speakers are at a significant distance from Plains Cree speakers. Valentine has suggested that "The logical means by which Plains Cree could exert an influence on Severn Ojibwe is through the Cree Bible, and other liturgical materials, which are used widely and extensively in the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in the Severn region." The liturgical language of many of these communities is Plains Cree, a separate mutually unintelligible language.