The Massachusett are a Native American people who historically lived in areas surrounding Massachusetts Bay, as well as northeast and southern Massachusetts in what is now the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including present-day Greater Boston. Tribal members spoke the Massachusett language, part of the Algonquian family. The present-day U.S state Massachusetts is named after the tribe.

The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family, formerly spoken by several tribes inhabiting coastal regions of Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and the Islands. It was also commonly referred to as the Natick, Wômpanâak (Wampanoag), Pokanoket, or Indian language. The language was used by John Eliot to print the first Bible in the Americas in 1663. The adoption of the orthography of the Bible led to widespread literacy amongst the indigenous peoples of southern New England. The language went extinct in the late 19th century, but is currently being revived by Wampanoag tribal member Jessie Little Doe Baird, who started work on the Wômpanâak Language Reclamation Project in 1993. Classes for learners have been set up in four Wampanoag communities, and a handful of native speakers are now growing up in the language. An immersion charter school is set to open in 2015, with Wampanoag as the language of instruction for core subjects. As the school is a charter school, it will be available to both tribal and non-tribal citizens of regional Massachusetts.