| Piscataway | |
|---|---|
| Conoy | |
 Catholic Catechism prayers handwritten in the Piscataway,Latin, and English languages by aCatholic missionary to thePiscataway tribe,Andrew White, SJ, ca. 1634–1640.Lauinger Library,Georgetown University[1] | |
| Native to | United States |
| Region | Maryland |
| Ethnicity | Piscataway people |
| Extinct | 1748 |
Algic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | psy |
| Glottolog | pisc1239 |
Piscataway (/pɪˈskætəweɪ/pih-SKAT-ə-way) is an extinctAlgonquian language formerly spoken by thePiscataway, a dominantchiefdom in southernMaryland on the Western Shore of theChesapeake Bay at time of contact with English settlers.[2] Piscataway, also known asConoy (from theIroquoisethnonym for the tribe), is considered a dialect ofNanticoke.[3]
This designation is based on the scant evidence available for the Piscataway language. TheDoeg tribe, then located in present-dayNorthern Virginia, are also thought to have spoken a form of the same language. These dialects were intermediate between theNative American languageLenape spoken to the north of this area (in present-dayDelaware,New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut) and thePowhatan language, formerly spoken to the south, in what is nowTidewater Virginia.
Piscataway is classified as an Eastern Algonquian language:
Piscataway is not spoken today, but records of the language still exist. According toThe Languages of Native North America, Piscataway, otherwise called Conoy (from theIroquois name for the tribe), was a dialect ofNanticoke.[3] This assignment depends on the insufficient number of accessible documents of both Piscataway and Nanticoke. It is identified with theLenape dialects (Unlachtigo,Unami, andMuncy; spoken in what is now called Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut), and is more closely connected toPowhatan, which was formerly spoken in the area of present-day Virginia. The first speakers lived on the western shore of theChesapeake Bay, today part of Maryland. In particular, they occupied the range of the lower Potomac and Patuxent River seepages. "Potomac" is a Piscataway word (Patawomeck) that translates to "where the goods are brought".[4]
The Jesuit evangelist FatherAndrew White translated theCatholic catechism into the Piscataway language in the 1630s, 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.[5] White also wrote a grammar dictionary,[6] though it is now considered lost. A prominent speaker of Piscataway wasMary Kittamaquund, called the "Pocahontas of Maryland" due to her state as the daughter of a chieftain, marriage to an English settler and diplomatic ability.[7]
TheNational Museum of the American Indian Mitsitam Native Foods Café is named after the Piscataway andDelaware term for 'let's eat'.[8] Similarly theUniversity of Maryland, College Park named a dining hall Yahentamitsi, which translates to 'a place to go to eat'.[9]
This section gives the phoneme inventory as reconstructed by Mackie (2006).[5]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alv./ Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | t | k | |||
| Affricate | tʃ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʃ | x | h | |
| voiced | z | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iiː | uuː | |
| Mid | eeː | (ə) | ooː |
| Open | aaː |
Italics indicate extinct languages | |
| Indigenous languages | |
| Immigrant | |
| Sign languages | |
