Miꞌkmaq (/ˈmɪɡmɑː/ MIG-mah; Mi'kmaq: [miːɡmax]), or Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk, is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 Miꞌkmaq in Canada and the United States; the total ethnic Miꞌkmaq population is roughly 20,000. The native name of the language is Lnuismk, Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk or Miꞌkmwei (in some dialects). The word Miꞌkmaq is a plural word meaning 'my friends' (singular miꞌkm); the adjectival form is Miꞌkmaw.

Miꞌkmaq is one of the Algic languages, a family that once spanned from a small portion of California across Central Canada, the Midwestern United States, and the northeastern coast of North America. Within this family, Miꞌkmaq is part of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup spoken largely along the Atlantic coast. It is closely related to several extant languages, such as Malecite-Passamaquoddy, Massachusett and Munsee as well as extinct languages like Abenaki and Unami. Beyond having a similar language background and sharing close geographic proximity, the Miꞌkmaq notably held an alliance with four other tribes within the Eastern Algonquian language group known as the Wabanaki Confederacy: in short, a history of long-term language contact has existed between Miꞌkmaq and its close linguistic relatives.

Miꞌkmaq has many similarities with its fellow Eastern Algonquian languages, including multiple word cognates: for instance, compare the Miꞌkmaq word for 'woman', eꞌpit, to the Maliseet ehpit [æpit], or the varying related words for the color 'white': wapeꞌt in Miꞌkmaq, wapi [wapi] in Maliseet, waapii [wapi] in Munsee, wôbi [wɔ̃bɪ] in Abenaki and wòpe [wɔpe] in Unami. Even outside of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup, there exist similar cognates within the larger Algic family, such as the Cree wāpiskāw [wɔ:bɪska:w] and the Miami-Illinois waapi [wa:pi].

Like many Native American languages, Miꞌkmaq uses a classifying system of animate versus inanimate words. The animacy system in general is common, but the specifics of Miꞌkmaq's system differ even from closely related Algic languages. For instance, in Wampanoag, the word for 'Sun', cone, is inanimate, but the word for 'Earth', ahkee, is animate, a fact used by some scholars to claim that the Wampanoag people were aware of the Earth's rotation around an unmoving Sun; however, in Miꞌkmaq, both the word for 'Sun', naꞌguꞌset, and the word for 'Earth', ugsꞌtqamu, are animate, and parallel cultural knowledge regarding astronomy cannot be gleaned through the language. Much like grammatical gender, the core concept of animacy is shared across similar languages while the exact connotations animacy has within Miꞌkmaq are unique.

Many Acadian French and Chiac words are rooted in the Miꞌkmaq language, due to the Acadians and Miꞌkmaq living together prior to the Expulsion of the Acadians and the British colonization of Acadia; in French-speaking areas, traces of Miꞌkmaq can also be found largely in geographical names within regions historically that were occupied by the Miꞌkmaq people, including Quebec and several towns in Nova Scotia such as Antigonish and Shubenacadie. Moreover, several Miꞌkmaq words have made their way into colonizing languages: the English words caribou and toboggan are borrowings from Miꞌkmaq. The name caribou was probably derived from the Miꞌkmaq word xalibu or Qalipu meaning 'the one who paws'. Marc Lescarbot in his publication in French in 1610 used the term caribou. Silas Tertius Rand translated the Miꞌkmaq word Kaleboo as 'caribou' in his Miꞌkmaq-English dictionary (Rand 1888:98).

The aforementioned use of hieroglyphic writing in pre-colonial Miꞌkmaq society shows that Miꞌkmaq was one of the few Native American languages to have a writing system before European contact.

Linguist Peter Bakker identified two Basque loanwords in Miꞌkmaq, presumably because of extensive trade contact between Basque sailors and Native Americans in the 16th century. The overall friendly exchanges starting in mid-16th century between the Miꞌkmaqs and the Basque whalers provided the basis for the development of an Algonquian–Basque pidgin with a strong Miꞌkmaq imprint, which was recorded to be still in use in the early 18th century.

The Miꞌkmaq language possesses a degree of endangerment level of vulnerable under the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger scale. A level of vulnerable means the language may not be used consistently and instead the dominant language English is opted for. This also means it is still somewhat commonly spoken by younger generations or children of Miꞌkmaq people. A lack of fluent Miꞌkmaq speakers is due to the cultural genocide performed by the Canadian government through the introduction of the Canadian Indian residential school system. These schools under the notation of assimilation, forced Indigenous children to reject their cultural identity and language. These schools resulted in a significant number of children physically and mentally abused and without the means to speak their mother tongue.