Piscataway language

Piscataway (/pɪˈskætəweɪ/ pih-SKAT-ə-way) is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by the Piscataway, a dominant chiefdom in southern Maryland on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay at time of contact with English settlers. Piscataway, also known as Conoy (from the Iroquois ethnonym for the tribe), is considered a dialect of Nanticoke.

This designation is based on the scant evidence available for the Piscataway language. The Doeg tribe, then located in present-day Northern Virginia, 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, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut) and the Powhatan language, formerly spoken to the south, in what is now Tidewater Virginia.