Ottawa Dialect - Sample Text

Sample Text

Traditional Ottawa stories fall into two general categories, aadsookaan "legend, sacred story" and dbaajmowin "narrative, story". Stories in the aasookaan category involve mythical beings such as the trickster character Nenbozh. Stories in the dbaajmowin category include traditional stories that do not necessarily involve mythical characters, although the term is also used more generally to refer to any story not in the aasookaan category. Published Ottawa texts include a range of genres, including historical narratives, stories of conflict with other indigenous groups, humorous stories, and others.

Ottawa speaker Andrew Medler dictated the following text while working with linguist Leonard Bloomfield in a linguistic field methods class at the 1939 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. Medler grew up near Saginaw, Michigan but spent most of his life at Walpole Island. The texts that Medler dictated were originally published in a linguistically oriented transcription using phonetic symbols, and have been republished in a revised edition that uses the modern orthography and includes detailed linguistic analyses of each text.

Love Medicine
Andrew Medler

(1) Ngoding kiwenziinh ngii-noondwaaba a-dbaajmod wshkiniigkwen gii-ndodmaagod iw wiikwebjigan.

Once I heard an old man tell of how a young woman asked him for love medicine.

(2) Wgii-msawenmaan niw wshkinwen.

She was in love with a young man.

(3) Mii dash niw kiwenziinyan gii-ndodmawaad iw wiikwebjigan, gye go wgii-dbahmawaan.

So then she asked that old man for the love medicine, and she paid him for it.

(4) Mii dash gii-aabjitood maaba wshkiniigkwe iw mshkiki gaa-giishpnadood.

Then this young woman used that medicine that she had bought.

(5) Mii dash maaba wshkinwe gaa-zhi-gchi-zaaghaad niw wshkiniigkwen.

Then this young man accordingly very much loved that young woman.

(6) Gye go mii gii-wiidgemaad, gye go mii wiiba gii-yaawaawaad binoojiinyan.

Then he married her; very soon they had children.

(7) Aapji go gii-zaaghidwag gye go gii-maajiishkaawag.

They loved each other and they fared very well.