Tasmanian languages

Map showing the approximate ethnic divisions in pre-European Tasmania.

The Tasmanian languages, or Palawa languages, were a small language family indigenous to the island of Tasmania. Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were several languages on Tasmania; estimates run from less than half a dozen to a dozen or so.^[1] They are believed to have become extinct in 1905, with the death of the last known speaker, Fanny Cochrane Smith. The Tasmanian Aborigines today speak English.

Little is known of the languages and no relationship to other languages are demonstrable, although it has been proposed that they are related to southern Australian Aboriginal languages, mainly based on phonological similarities. Joseph Greenberg proposed an Indo-Pacific superfamily which includes Tasmanian along with Andamanese and Papuan (but not Australian). This has not met with acceptance by historical linguists.^{[citation needed]}

There do exist a few word lists taken by a missionary with a poor grasp of the sounds of Tasmanian, which do appear to have been fairly typical of Australian languages in this parameter. Fanny Cochrane Smith recorded a series of wax cylinder recordings of Aboriginal songs, the only existing audio recording of the Tasmanian indigenous languages. In 1972, a woman in Hobart shared with Terry Crowley one sentence and a few words that had been handed down for generations, of a language last spoken for daily communication in the 1830s.^[2] From these sources, Tasmanian people are seeking to recover their lost languages and traditions.^[2] The largest language revival project to date is the Palawa kani project.

References

Bibliography

• Crowley, T; Dixon, R. M. W. (1981). "Tasmanian". in Dixon, R. M. W. and Blake, B. J.. Handbook of Australian languages. Vol 2. Canberra: Australian National University Press. pp. 394–421. 

External links

• AIATSIS: Aboriginal Australia Wallmap

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