About the Language
 

Mi’kmaw is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by the Mi’kmaq, a First Nations people of the North American Northeastern Woodlands. Eastern Algoquian languages constitute part of the larger Algonquian language family.

The Mi’kmaq, L’nu’k, are an Indigenous Northeastern Woodlands Algonquian peoples whose traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory, Mi’kma’ki, spans across the Canadian Eastern Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Gaspé Peninsula of Québec, as well as the Northeastern United States.

Mi’kmaw with a /w/ refers to the language and to an individual Mi’kmaw person (They speak Mi’kmaw, She is Mi’kmaw), whereas the spelling of Mi’kmaq with a /q/ refers to the whole of Mi’kmaq people and/or culture generally (The Mi’kmaq live here).