Ojibwe (or Ojibwa, Ojibway, or Chippewa), also called Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of the Algonquian language family. Ojibwe is characterized by a series of dialects that have local names and frequently local (non-indigenous) writing systems. There is no single dialect that is considered the most prestigious or most prominent, and no standard writing system that covers all dialects. The relative autonomy of the regional dialects of Ojibwe is associated with an absence of linguistic or political unity among Ojibwe-speaking groups.

The dialects of Ojibwe are spoken in Canada from southwestern Quebec, through Ontario, Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan, with outlying communities in Alberta, and in the United States from Michigan through Wisconsin and Minnesota, with a number of communities in North Dakota and Montana, as well as migrant groups in Kansas and Oklahoma.

The aggregated dialects of Ojibwe comprise the second most commonly spoken First Nations language in Canada (after Cree), and the fourth most widely spoken in the United States or Canada behind Navajo, Inuit and Cree.^{[citation needed]}

Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.

The meaning of Anishnaabeg is "First" or "Original-Peoples". Another definition - possibly reflecting a traditionalist's viewpoint with a certain moral dimension - refers to "the good humans", or good people, meaning those who are on the right road/path given to them by the Creator or Gichi-Manidoo (Great Spirit). The Ojibwe scholar, linguist and author Basil Johnston, who explains the name in a creationist context, states that its literal translation is "Beings Made Out of Nothing", or "Spontaneous Beings", since they had been created by divine breath and were made up of flesh and blood and a soul or spirit - instead of rock, or fire, or water, or wind.

Not all Anishinaabemowin speakers, however, call themselves Anishinaabeg. The Ojibwe people who moved to what are now the prairie provinces of Canada call themselves Nakawē(-k) and their branch of the Anishinaabe language, Nakawēmowin. (The French ethnonym for the group was the Saulteaux). Particular Anishinaabeg groups have different names from region to region.

Karen Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, (born June 7, 1954) is an author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American heritage. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.^{[citation needed]} In April 2009, her novel The Plague of Doves was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis.

The eldest of seven children, Karen Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, the daughter of Ralph Erdrich, a German-American, and his wife, Rita (Gourneau). Rita's father and Louise's grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, served as tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in the 1950s.

Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.