Ottawa Dialect - History

History

In the general model of linguistic change, "a single ancestor language (a proto-language) develops dialects which in time through the accumulation of changes become distinct languages." Continued changes in the descendant languages result in the development of dialects which again over time develop into distinct languages. The Ojibwe language is a historical descendant of Proto-Algonquian, the reconstructed ancestor language of the Algonquian languages. Ojibwe has subsequently developed a series of dialects including Ottawa, which is one of the three dialects of Ojibwe that has innovated the most through its historical development, along with Severn Ojibwe and Algonquin.