Piscataway is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by the

Piscataway Piscataway may refer to: *Piscataway people, a Native American ethnic group native to the southern Mid-Atlantic States *Piscataway language *Piscataway, Maryland, an unincorporated community *Piscataway, New Jersey, a township *Piscataway Creek, Ma ...

, a dominant

chiefdom A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political organization in non-industrial societies usually based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is monopolized by the legitimate senior members of select families or 'houses'. These elites form a ...

in southern

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

on the Western Shore of the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...

at time of contact with English settlers.Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Piscataway, also known as ''Conoy'' (from the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

ethnonym for the tribe), is considered a dialect of

Nanticoke Nanticoke may refer to: * Nanticoke people in Delaware, United States * Nanticoke language, an Algonquian language * Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, a state-recognized tribe in New Jersey Place names Canada * Nanticoke, Ontario ** Nanticoke Generating S ...

. This designation is based on the scant evidence available for the Piscataway language. The Doeg tribe, then located in present-day

Northern Virginia Northern Virginia, locally referred to as NOVA or NoVA, comprises several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is a widespread region radiating westward and southward from Washington, D.C. Wit ...

, are also thought to have spoken a form of the same language. These dialects were intermediate between the Native American language Lenape spoken to the north of this area (in present-day

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut) and the Powhatan language, formerly spoken to the south, in what is now

Tidewater Virginia Tidewater refers to the north Atlantic coastal plain region of the United States of America. Definition Culturally, the Tidewater region usually includes the low-lying plains of southeast Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, southern Maryl ...

Classification

Piscataway is classified as an Eastern Algonquian language:
Algic (42)
*
Algonquian (40)
**
Eastern Algonquian (12)
**** Nanticoke-Conoy (2) ***** Nanticoke nt(A language o
United States
***** Piscataway sy(A language o
United States

History

Piscataway is not spoken today, but records of the language still exist. According to ''The Languages of Native North America,'' Piscataway, otherwise called Conoy (from the Iroquois name for the tribe), was a dialect of Nanticoke. This assignment depends on the insufficient number of accessible documents of both Piscataway and Nanticoke. It is identified with the Lenape dialects (Unlachtigo, Unami, and Muncy; spoken in what is now called Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut), and is more closely connected to Powhatan, which was formerly spoken in the area of present-day Virginia. The first speakers lived on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, today part of Maryland. In particular, they occupied the range of the lower Potomac and Patuxent River seepages. The Jesuit evangelist Father Andrew White translated the Catholic catechism into the Piscataway language in 1610, and other English teachers gathered Piscataway language materials. The original copy is a five-page Roman Catholic instruction written in Piscataway; it is the main surviving record of the language.

Phonology

This section gives the phoneme inventory as reconstructed by Mackie (2006).

Notes

References

* Mackie, Lisa (2006). ''Fragments of Piscataway: A Preliminary Description.'' Retrieved February 12, 2016.
OLAC resources in and about the Piscataway language

A section of a catechism, probably in the Piscataway language
written by Andrew White, S.J.
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Fragments_of_Piscataway:_A_Preliminary_Description

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Fragments of Piscataway: A Preliminary Description

* ethnologue:psy">http://www.ethnologue.com/language/psy {{Native Americans in Maryland Eastern Algonquian languages Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands Extinct languages of North America Piscataway tribe Indigenous languages of Maryland