English Ojibwe Dictionary
Free offline English-Ojibwe dictionary. An essential tool for Ojibwe language preservation and learning.
Key Features
100% Offline
Look up Ojibwe words anytime, anywhere — no internet connection needed.
Fast Search
Instant results as you type. Find the word you need in milliseconds.
Completely Free
No hidden costs, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases required.
Android & iOS
Available on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Comprehensive
Thousands of words and phrases covering everyday vocabulary and more.
Bidirectional
Search from English to Ojibwe or Ojibwe to English seamlessly.
About English Ojibwe Dictionary
This English-Ojibwe dictionary supports the Ojibwe language, one of the largest Native American languages in North America. It is a valuable resource for community members, students, and language revitalization programs.
About Ojibwe
Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin) is spoken by communities across the northern United States and southern Canada. It is one of the largest Native American language groups, with active revitalization programs in many communities.
Who is this app for? Ojibwe community members, language learners, indigenous studies students, educators.
Anishinaabemowin, across the Great Lakes
Ojibwe — Anishinaabemowin to its speakers — is an Algonquian language spoken across a wide area of the Great Lakes region, in Ontario, Manitoba, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan among others. It is one of the more widely spoken Indigenous languages of North America.
It is endangered but not in the same position as Cheyenne: Ojibwe has active immersion schooling, university-level instruction, and a substantial body of documentation and community-led teaching. Dialect variation across such a large territory is considerable, and a word or spelling normal in one community may not be in another.
The double vowel orthography
Several writing systems exist for Ojibwe, including syllabics in some communities. The one most commonly seen in teaching materials is the double vowel system, which marks long vowels by writing them twice — so vowel length, which is meaningful, appears directly in the spelling rather than being left implicit.
If you encounter Ojibwe spelled differently from what you find here, that is likely a different orthography or a different dialect rather than an error. This is normal for a language with recent and community-specific writing conventions.
Animate and inanimate, not masculine and feminine
Ojibwe grammar sorts nouns by animacy rather than by gender, and the classification does not always match intuition — some items an English speaker would consider inanimate are grammatically animate. The distinction spreads through the grammar, affecting verb forms and plural endings.
The language is also polysynthetic, so single words carry what English spreads across a clause, and many forms encountered in speech are constructed rather than listed. As with Cheyenne, that is a real limit on what a dictionary of this kind can hold.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Ojibwe and Anishinaabemowin?
They refer to the same language. Anishinaabemowin is the name in the language itself and is increasingly preferred by speakers and communities; Ojibwe, with its various spellings, is the more common English name.
Why does Ojibwe spelling vary between sources?
Because several orthographies are in use, including syllabics in some communities, and dialect variation across the Great Lakes region is substantial. The double vowel system, which writes long vowels twice, is the most common in teaching materials.
Does Ojibwe have grammatical gender?
It classifies nouns by animate versus inanimate rather than masculine versus feminine, and the classification does not always match English intuition. The distinction affects verb forms and plural endings throughout the grammar.
Is Ojibwe still being taught to children?
Yes. Ojibwe has active immersion schools, university instruction and community-led programmes, which places it in a stronger position than many Indigenous languages of North America despite still being endangered.
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