Wolastoqiyik — Wolastoqey / Maliseet–Passamaquoddy (language page)

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = published record cited in Sources. The Collection's standing = what the Sacred Name Collection's recovery shelf actually holds, stated on the page's face — held, partial, or not held — audited 2026-10-30. The Wolastoqiyik and Peskotomuhkati nations' own programmes lead the living language; this page links to them and copies nothing from them. No ceremonial or restricted content appears here.

The Wolastoqiyik — the people of the Wolastoq, the Saint John River — live in what is now New Brunswick and Québec, and the Passamaquoddy (Peskotomuhkati) in Maine; one language joins them, Wolastoqey. The language stands at the edge: 310 native speakers in Canada (2021) and about 100 in the United States (2007); UNESCO classes it Severely Endangered, and community reporting puts fluent speakers at fewer than 100. With Potawatomi, it is the narrowest eastern window in the audit (Canada Nations Language Audit, 2026-10-30).

The Collection's standing — NOT HELD, stated on the face

• NOT HELD. No Wolastoqey text stands on the Collection's recovery shelf, no register entry exists, and until this page was built no doorway stood in any tree. The gap is stated plainly because the window is narrow: the printed record of earlier generations exists, but the language's future is being carried now by its holders' own organised work.
• Class: RECOVERABLE WITH LIVING HOLDERS — the recovery road runs beside the holders' programmes, under the register's public-domain law, and at the holders' pace.

The holders' own programmes — linked, never copied

• The Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Language Portal — more than 19,000 entries with audio and video of elders, built by the Mi'kmaq-Maliseet Institute at the University of New Brunswick: pmportal.org.
• The Wolastoqey dictionary voiced by the speakers themselves — the Tremblay family of Neqotkuk (Tobique) — and the Wolastoqey Nation's own language work; courses at the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University.
• The language also sounds in the work of Wolastoqiyik artists, Jeremy Dutcher's recordings among them — the living culture carrying its tongue into new rooms.

Sources

• Canada Nations Language Audit (this programme, 2026-10-30), §6.1 — speaker counts (Canada 2021; US 2007), UNESCO class, fluent-speaker reporting, portal and programme record.
• Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey Language Portal (pmportal.org) — entry and media counts, accessed 2026-10-30.

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) The "fewer than 100 fluent" line is community reporting carried by the audit, set beside the census counts, not in place of them. (2) US speaker count is the 2007 line; no newer figure is asserted.