Anishinaabe or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek (which is the plural form of the word) is a collective term that refers to the Ojibway, Odawa and Algonkin Peoples, who all share closely related Algonquian languages.
There are many variant spellings of the name “Anishinaabe” which essentially means “First-” or “Original-People”. For instance, among the eastern Ojibwe and Odawa, the name is realised as “Nishnaabe”. The cognate word Neshnabé comes from Potawatomi, a people long allied with Odawas and Ojibwes; who together form the Council of Three Fires. Identified as Anishinaabe but not part of the Council of Three Fires are the Nipissing, Mississaugas and Algonquin.
The Saulteaux people of western Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan are also Anishinaabe, a sub-tribe of the Ojibwe, but they often call themselves Nakawe(-k) and their form of the Anishinaabe language as Nakawemowin. Closely related to the Ojibwe and speaking a language mutually intelligible with Anishinaabemowin (Anishinaabe language) are the Oji-Cree (also known as “Severn Ojibwe”). However, their most common self-description is Anishinini (plural: Anishininiwag) and their language Anishininiimowin.