9618 Eastern Ojibwe 1000-9999 3000? Speaker number: Possibly 1500 (?)
Nishnaabemwin (Eastern Ojibwe and Ottawa/Odawa): Nishnaabemwin represents the linguistic and social fusion of two historically distinct communities, the Ottawa (Odawa) and the Eastern Ojibwe. The homeland of the Ottawa dialect is on the north shores of Lake Huron, and the most vigorous community of speakers is at the Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario; there are also several hundred speakers in Michigan, with the largest community at the Isabella Reservation. A number of Ottawas were relocated in Oklahoma during the 19th century, but the language does not survive there. The principal Eastern Ojibwe communities are at Walpole Island on the Detroit River, on Parry Island, and at Curve Lake, near Peterborough. In both Ontario and in Michigan there is considerable dialect mixture between Nishnaabemwin and Southwestern Ojibwe (here usually called “Chippewa”) and the distinction is sometimes hard to make. The most clearly defined (and most vigorously surviving) variety is the Odawa of Manitoulin Island, where perhaps half of the population of over 3,000 has some fluency in the language. North America On 1,500 1000-9999