Lesson 1 of 18 · Unit 1: Foundations
Verb Classification
Your first lesson: how Ojibwe sorts its verbs, and the words you need to say hello.
By the end of this lesson you'll be introduced to
- What it means to say a verb is “classified”
- Grammatical animacy — the two classes every noun belongs to
- Verbs that take an object, and verbs that don’t
- The four verb classes this course uses
- 7 new words from this class day
What verb classification means
Start here
What does “classifying” a verb mean?
NewEvery language sorts its words in some way. English separates singular from plural, and past from present. Ojibwe sorts its verbs into groups based on grammatical information the verb carries.
You don't need to memorise a chart today. The point of learning these groups is that they give you a place to put the patterns you're about to meet: once you know which group a verb belongs to, a lot of what looks like random variation turns out to be regular.
This course builds its groups out of exactly two ideas, and the rest of this lesson teaches them one at a time.
Try it
Before we go on — what kind of information do you think a verb class is about?
Grammatical animacy
The first ingredient
Idea one: animate and inanimate
NewOjibwe grammar sorts things into two classes: animate and inanimate. The class a word belongs to affects the grammar around it, so it's worth learning a word's class along with its meaning.
The animate class is wider than an English speaker's “alive” might suggest: people, animals and trees are animate — and so are stones, snow, ice, and the sun and moon, while water, chairs and plates are inanimate. Ideas of what counts as alive differ across languages and worldviews; the grammar reference this course uses connects the animate class to what carries life or power within the language's own worldview, and notes honestly that no single explanation predicts every word.
So when a word's class surprises you, treat it as something English expectations didn't prepare you for — not as an exception to fix. The reliable way to know a word's class is to learn it from documented material, which is exactly what this app's dictionary records, word by word, each with its source.
Try it
Which class does the dictionary record for this word?
Giniw — golden eagle
Try it
Which class does the dictionary record for this word?
Wiigiwaam — wigwam
Applies to: documented nouns and verbsA word only shows an animacy here when the source material recorded one.
Transitive and intransitive verbs
The second ingredient
Idea two: does the verb act on anything?
NewSome verbs act on something. Some just describe their subject. Grammar has names for the two: transitive verbs take an object, and intransitive verbs don't.
An object is whoever or whatever the verb is done to. In English, “She sees him” has one — him is being seen. “She sleeps” doesn't; there's nothing being slept.
Those English sentences are here purely to explain the idea. The concept is the same in Ojibwe, and in a moment you'll see how it combines with animacy.
Try it
Which of these English sentences has an object?
The four verb classes
Now the names
Putting the two ideas together
NewYou now have both ingredients. Combine them — is there an object? and which things are animate? — and you get the four groups this course uses. Each has a short abbreviation, and every one of them starts with V for verb.
Open each one below to see what it means and what this course actually documents about it.
Intransitive — no object
The verb describes its subject and stops there.
Transitive — acts on an object
The verb acts on something or someone else.
Select any of the four classes above to see what it means and what the course notes actually document about it.
Opened 0 of 4 classes.
Applies to: VII verbsAlmost everything this course goes on to teach — plurals, negation, tenses — is documented for VII verbs specifically. Where that's the case, you'll see this label, so you always know how wide a rule is.
The course diagram also carries four labels (Command, Independent, Dependent, Participial) whose meaning the source doesn't state. Rather than guess at them, they're left out until the material explains them.
New vocabulary
New7 words from this class dayThese are greetings and short answers — the words you'd need to start a conversation.
- View entry →AaniinGrammar Word
what (concept), how
Needs review — the sources give more than one meaning for this word.
- View entry →Bangii eta goGrammar Word
Just a little
- View entry →BoozhooGrammar Word
Hello
- View entry →EnhGrammar Word
Yes
Used by male speakers.
- View entry →Eya'Grammar Word
Yes
Used by female speakers.
- View entry →GaawiinGrammar Word
No
- View entry →IndoojibwemVerb
I speak Ojibwe
Try it
What does this word mean?
Bangii eta go
Use what you learned
Your turn
Try it out
These three sentences all come from this class day's notes. Use them the way they were meant to be used — as the start of a conversation.
Say it yourself
Introduce yourself
This class day documents a sentence frame with a blank in it for your name:
_____ indizhinikaaz.
My name is ____.
Saved on this device so the app can greet you — change or clear it any time on your Account page.
Anishinaabe na gidaaw?
Are you Anishinaabe/one of the people?
Gidoojibwem ina?
Do you speak Ojibwe?
Check your understanding
A short round covering everything above. You can retake it as many times as you like — your best result is kept.
Preparing your questions…
Finish this lesson
Work through the lesson's activities, then mark it complete. Your quiz score doesn't have to be perfect.
- Try the animacy check — not yet done
- Try the transitive/intransitive check — not yet done
- Open all four verb classes in the diagram — not yet done
- Try the vocabulary check — not yet done
- Finish Check Your Understanding — not yet done
Source
Every Ojibwe word and sentence on this page comes from the material cited above. The English explanations were written for this app.