Oil and mixed media on wood panel

45” x 45”

2021

Sleeping Language of the Piscataway

Piscataway is not spoken today, but records of the language still exist. According to The Languages of Native North America, Piscataway is also referred to as Conoy, from the Iroquois name for the tribe.

Piscataway was a non-written language. The first speakers lived on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, today part of Maryland.

Jesuit priest and missionary Father Andrew White translated the Roman Catholic Catechism into Piscataway in 1610, at which time he developed the first written version of the spoken language.

The original five pages of written text are housed in the Special Collections of the Georgetown University Library and are the only written artifacts known to exist. The Piscataway language is considered to be a “sleeping language” with no living speakers.