Long before Europeans ever set foot on the American continents, countless ethnolinguistic groups called the land home, each practicing their own culture and speaking their own language. The land that would become North America abounded with linguistic diversity, as it indeed still does today, but the languages themselves have changed. While North America’s incredible linguistic diversity today stems from immigration from around the world, the continent’s historical linguistic diversity was derived from autochthonous languages that developed on the land over centuries and that are, sadly, mostly endangered today.
One of these languages is Chippewa (not to be confused with Chipewyan, an unrelated indigenous language of northern Canada). Most indigenous languages of the United States and Canada have speaker numbers in the low thousands or hundreds, so with only around 7000 speakers, Chippewa stands as one of the largest indigenous languages in the region. The language exhibits considerable variation in its dialects, which can easily coexist given Chippewa’s lack of standardization. Chippewa is severely endangered because few young people speak the language, so we at TranslationServices.com decided to put together a professional Chippewa translation team for this precious language.
Want to see a quote for our Chippewa translation services? All you have to do is ask us for one!
Why don’t we learn a bit more about Chippewa?
Chippewa belongs to the Algonquian language subfamily, one of the most widespread and prominent indigenous language families of the United States and Canada. More specifically, it’s classified as part of the dialect continuum of the major indigenous language Ojibwe, itself related to Cree. Another close relative is Potawatomi, a recently extinct Algonquian language currently undergoing diligent revival efforts. Speakers call Chippewa Anishinaabemowin, or, alternatively, and more specifically, Ojibwemowin.
Although the default word order of Chippewa is subject-verb-object, like in English, the incredible grammatical complexity of the language lends itself to a very free word order. Incorporating a quintessential Algonquian feature, Chippewa differentiates between living and non-living nouns, with animate nouns requiring different verb forms from inanimate nouns. Instead of independent prepositions like in English, Chippewa attaches postpositions directly to the nouns they modify. Chippewa also makes a distinction between the inclusive and exclusive first-person plural, which means the language has two different versions of “we”—one that includes the listener, and one that excludes them.
So, is Chippewa difficult? Of course. But not for our native-speaking Chippewa translators!
What kind of Chippewa translation services are you looking for?
No matter what needs you have for Chippewa translation services, we’ll do our best to accommodate you with our professional Chippewa translation team. This includes both translation into Chippewa and translation from Chippewa, for any range of documents and content domains. Have a historical document in Chippewa that you want translated into clear English? Send it our way. Looking to translate traditional Chippewa stories to showcase the beauty of this indigenous U.S. culture? We’d be happy to oblige. Seeking to translate English-language pedagogical materials into crisp Chippewa so that Chippewa children can receive quality education in their ancestral language? Our translators will pour their passion into your project. Want to translate English-language books, poems, apps, websites, and games into Chippewa to increase the pride, domains of usage, and language-learning opportunities in Chippewa? We’re your team.
Let’s get started with your Chippewa translation services! Just send us a message to tell us your needs.