45-640: The River Derwent , also known as timtumili minanya in palawa kani , is a significant river and tidal estuary in Tasmania, Australia . It begins its journey as a freshwater river in the Central Highlands at Lake St Clair , descending over 700 metres (2,300 ft) across a distance of more than 200 kilometres (120 mi). At the settlement of New Norfolk in the Derwent Valley its waters become brackish , flowing through Hobart ,
90-470: A cafe, restaurant, and a bathers' pavilion. In 2020, concerns were raised by residents about the slow progress of the project and deviations from the original 2015 vision. In 2021, several native trees near Bellerive Beach were deliberately poisoned, resulting in the removal of around 30 trees. Investigations were launched into the incident, which angered residents due to the environmental impact. A $ 600,000 shared cycle pathway connecting Bellerive Beach to
135-532: A central role in Tasmania's economy and lifestyle. The upper part of the river was named after the River Derwent, Cumbria by British Commodore John Hayes who explored it in 1793. The name is Brythonic Celtic for "valley thick with oaks". Matthew Flinders placed the name "Derwent River" on all of the river. The name "River Derwent" was officially endorsed on 20 May 1959. The River Derwent valley
180-604: A sound recording. Bellerive Beach, Tasmania Bellerive Beach is a suburban beach along the River Derwent in Bellerive , Hobart , Tasmania . The south-facing beach is located near the historic Kangaroo Battery coastal defences to the west and Howrah Beach to the east. It offers views across the Derwent estuary to Howrah , Tranmere , and Sandy Bay . Bellerive Beach is accompanied by parkland featuring play equipment, barbecues, and bathroom facilities. The beach
225-597: Is also bordered by the Bellerive Oval , a tree-lined reserve, and private residences. Before the arrival of Europeans, the land had been occupied by the Mouheneener people, part of the Nuennone or "South-East tribe," for possibly as long as 35,000 years. Abalone shell middens were discovered on Bellerive Beach in 1980, providing evidence of early Indigenous activity in the area. The suburb of Bellerive
270-489: Is apparent in the aboriginal pronunciation of English words like sugar , where the 's' was replaced with a t in pidgin English), and this is reflected in palawa kani. The pronunciation of palawa kani may reflect those words preserved in the now English-speaking palawa community, but does not reflect how the original Tasmanian words were likely to have been pronounced. Taylor (2006) states that "the persons who contributed to
315-423: Is characterised by agriculture , forestry , and hydropower generation. It serves as a vital source of water for irrigation and urban supply, notably providing a significant portion of Hobart's water needs. The river is also crucial for recreation, supporting activities such as boating, fishing, and leisure along its banks. Additionally, it facilitates marine transportation and various industrial activities, playing
360-465: Is nearly 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) wide, and as such is the widest river in Tasmania. The Derwent estuary contains dozens of white sandy beaches, many of which are staples of local activity within Hobart suburbs and include Bellerive Beach , Blackmans Bay Beach , Howrah Beach , Nutgrove Beach , Lords Beach , Long Beach , Taroona Beach , Hinsby Beach , Kingston Beach and Windermere Beach. Until
405-583: The Aboriginal people of what is now Tasmania (palawa kani: Lutruwita ). The centre wishes to restrict the availability of the language until it is established in the Aboriginal Tasmanian community and claims copyright . The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is used to support this claim to copyright as it declares that indigenous people have
450-634: The Derwent River ferry service at Bellerive was opened in 2021 as part of the Clarence Foreshore Trail. Partial closures of the trail occurred during a stormwater upgrade in 2022, with temporary access routes provided during the construction. Bellerive Beach is home to a variety of marine life. A colony of little penguins ( Eudyptula minor ) nests behind the dunes, and they can often be seen coming ashore after dark. The Clarence City Council enforces dog restrictions to protect
495-604: The Northeastern Tasmanian and Eastern Tasmanian language families, as these are ancestral to the modern palawa population as well as being the best attested Tasmanian languages. However, most place names are reconstructed using languages spoken around the locality as sources. Usually a single Tasmanian word is chosen for an English concept, but occasional duplicates occur, such as palawa and pakana , which come from different languages and both mean (Tasmanian) person. The words need to be reconstructed from
SECTION 10
#1732790641023540-486: The eastern barred bandicoot ( Perameles gunnii ), which is classified as vulnerable. The area behind the dunes is also home to several frog species, and the broader environment includes potential habitat for various hollow-nesting birds. Environmental changes to the beach landscape occur periodically due to weather patterns and natural forces. Bellerive Beach is accessible from the Hobart City Centre via
585-463: The Derwent, preys on not only the fish eggs, but also on the sea squirts ( ascidians ) that help to form the substrate that the fish spawn on. Several bridges connect the western shore (the more heavily populated side of the river) to the eastern shore of Hobart – in the greater Hobart area, these include the five lane Tasman Bridge , near the CBD, just north of the port; the four lane Bowen Bridge ; and
630-460: The English pronunciation spellings that they were recorded in. For example, in 1830 the local name for Hobart was recorded as nib.ber.loon.ne and niberlooner . Allowing for the distortions that occurred when linguistically naive Europeans tried recording Tasmanian words, the centre reconstructs the name as nipaluna . Palawa kani was developed in the 1990s by the language program of
675-490: The Meadowbank, Cluny, Repulse, Catagunya, Wayatinah, Liapootah and King William lakes or lagoons. The Upper Derwent is affected by agricultural run-off, particularly from land clearing and forestry. The Lower Derwent suffers from high levels of toxic heavy metal contamination in sediments. The Tasmanian Government -backed Derwent Estuary Program has commented that the levels of mercury , lead , zinc and cadmium in
720-584: The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, including Theresa Sainty, Jenny Longey and June Sculthorpe. The centre wishes to maintain control over the language until the Aboriginal community is familiar and competent with it. The language is only taught by community organisations and not by state schools. Since the language was constructed, an increasing number of people are able to use the language to some extent, some to great fluency. However,
765-533: The Tasmanian languages from existing records, in a project funded by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies . This included interviewing two granddaughters of Fanny Cochrane Smith, who provided "five words, one sentence, and a short song". They were able to find "virtually no data on the grammar and no running texts " and stated "it is impossible to say very much of linguistic interest about
810-745: The Tasmanian languages", and they did not proceed with the project. In the late twentieth century, as part of community efforts to retrieve as much of the original Tasmanian culture as possible, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre attempted to reconstruct a language for the indigenous community. Due to the scarcity of records, palawa kani was constructed as a composite of several of the estimated dozen original Tasmanian languages. The two primary sources of lexical and linguistic material are Brian Plomley's 1976 word lists and Crowley and Dixon's 1981 chapter on Tasmanian. These are supplemented by archival research. The source languages are those of
855-478: The capital city of Tasmania, its seawater estuary eventually empties into Storm Bay and the Tasman Sea . Historically, the banks of the Derwent were covered by forests and frequented by Aboriginal Tasmanians . With the arrival of European settlers, the area saw agricultural development and the construction of dams for hydro-electricity generation during the 20th century. Today, the Derwent's catchment area
900-457: The centre requests that non-Aboriginals wanting to use the language first make a formal application to the centre. The centre rejects the classification of a "constructed language" for palawa kani. In 2012, the centre filed a request to remove the Misplaced Pages articles on this language on copyright grounds, however this was refused. The animated television series Little J & Big Cuz was
945-534: The construction of several hydro-electric dams between 1934 and 1968, the river was prone to flooding. Now there are more than twenty dams and reservoirs used for the generation of hydro-electricity on the Derwent and its tributaries, including the Clyde , Dee , Jordan , Nive , Ouse , Plenty and Styx rivers. Seven lakes have been formed by damming the Derwent and the Nive rivers for hydroelectric purposes and include
SECTION 20
#1732790641023990-564: The decades, -ka is added to the digit, for payaka 20, luwaka 30, etc. For the hundreds and thousands, -ki and -ku are added, for pamaki 100, maraki 500, pamaku 1000, taliku 9000, etc. This sample is a eulogy by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Language Program first used at the 2004 anniversary of the Risdon Cove massacre of 1804 . Other versions are available, including one with
1035-657: The early stages of the palawa kani project, it was assumed that virtually no grammatical information had been preserved from the original Tasmanian languages, and that palawa kani would have to draw heavily on grammatical features of English. Since then, more thorough analysis by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre of words and sentences collected in wordlists of the Tasmanian languages have provided evidence of word orders differing from English, loanwords, adaptation of words to talk about introduced concepts, and suffixes. These grammatical and vocabulary features have been incorporated into palawa kani . The only running text recorded for
1080-643: The estuary portion extends a further 52 kilometres (32 mi) out to the Tasman Sea. Flows average in range from 50 to 140 cubic metres per second (1,800 to 4,900 cu ft/s) and the mean annual flow is 90 cubic metres per second (3,200 cu ft/s). The large estuary forms the Port of the City of Hobart – the deepest sheltered harbour in the Southern Hemisphere . Some past guests of
1125-484: The first television show to feature an episode entirely in palawa kani, which was broadcast on the NITV network in 2017. In 2018, The Nightingale became the first major film to feature palawa kani, with consultation from Aboriginal Tasmanian leaders. Palawa kani is also used on a number of signs in protected areas of Tasmania , for example kunanyi has been gazetted as an official name for Mount Wellington , and what
1170-562: The lower parts of the valley were clad in thick she-oak forests, remnants of which remain in various parts of the lower foreshore. There was a thriving whaling industry until the 1840s when the industry rapidly declined due to over-exploitation. Formed by the confluence of the Narcissus and Cuvier rivers within Lake St Clair , the Derwent flows generally southeast over a distance of 187 kilometres (116 mi) to New Norfolk and
1215-626: The most northerly crossing is at Derwent Bridge , before the river reaches its source of Lake St Clair . At the Derwent Bridge crossing, the flow of the river is generally narrow enough to be stepped across. The river is the subject of the multimedia performance "Falling Mountain" (2005 Mountain Festival), a reference to the mountain in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park from which
1260-498: The original Tasmanian languages is a sermon preached by George Robinson on Bruny Island in 1829, after being on the island for only eight weeks. His "Tasmanian" was actually English replaced word-for-word with Tasmanian words that had been stripped of their grammar, much as occurs in a contact pidgin . Robinson is one of the principal primary sources for palawa kani. There are two sets of pronouns, The second- and third-person plural pronouns are formed by adding mapali ("many") to
1305-634: The penguins. In 2021, the reduction of off-leash dog areas around Bellerive Beach and other Tasmanian beaches sparked public concern, with residents advocating for more dedicated spaces. Occasionally, bioluminescence caused by microscopic plankton can be observed in the waters around Bellerive Beach in the evening. Other marine life observed includes the southern blue-ringed octopus ( Hapalochlaena maculosa ), Australian swellshark ( Cephaloscyllium laticeps ), and species of dolphins such as bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops aduncus ) and Burrunan dolphins ( Tursiops aduncus australis ). Bellerive Beach and
1350-614: The policy allows for newly created names to be recognised as official. A number of other palawa kani place names exist, but are not in official use. In the following table, the IPA is first listed. The orthography is listed in italics if it differs from the IPA. The vowels are / a / , / i / , / u / and the diphthongs /ei/ ⟨ay⟩ and /oi/ ⟨uy⟩ . Consonant clusters include pr , tr and kr . Like most mainland languages, Tasmanian languages lacked sibilants (which
1395-569: The port include HMS Beagle in February 1836, carrying Charles Darwin ; the USS ; Enterprise ; USS John C. Stennis and USS Missouri . The largest vessel to ever travel the Derwent is the 113,000-tonne (111,000-long-ton), 61-metre (200 ft) high, ocean liner Diamond Princess , which made her first visit in January 2006. At points in its lower reaches the river
River Derwent (Tasmania) - Misplaced Pages Continue
1440-767: The project would appear to have uncritically accepted phonological features of the Australian Mainland languages as a guide to palawa phonology without undertaking an adequate comparative analysis of the orthographies used by the European recorders", and gives three examples: The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has decided that palawa kani should only be written in lowercase letters. Initial capital letters may be used for names of people and "family/Ancestral collectives". Nouns do not have number, and verbs do not indicate person or tense, e.g. waranta takara milaythina nara takara 'we walk where (place) they walked'. In
1485-522: The public. Dictionaries and other copyrightable resources for learning the language are only provided to the Aboriginal community. The Tasmanian languages were decimated after the British colonisation of Tasmania and the Black War . The last native speaker of any of the languages, Fanny Cochrane Smith , died in 1905. In 1972, Robert M. W. Dixon and Terry Crowley investigated reconstructing
1530-409: The respective singular pronouns; no second- or third-person plural pronouns are attested in the known documentation of the original Tasmanian languages. mapali 'many' may be used to distinguish mana 'my' from mana-mapali 'our, your'. nika also means 'this', as in milaythina nika 'their lands / this land'. The numerals are, These are conjoined for pamakati 11, payakati 12, etc. For
1575-509: The right to control their "cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions" and that states must "recognise and protect the exercise of these rights". However, the declaration is legally non-binding and languages cannot receive copyright protection in many countries, including Australia and the United States. The centre however provides a list of place names in palawa kani and consents to their free use by
1620-436: The river during months in winter and spring when their migration takes place. Some females even started using calm waters of the river as a safe ground for giving birth to their calves and would stay over following weeks after disappearance of almost 200 years due to being wiped out by intense whaling activities. In the winter months of 2014, humpback whales and a minke whale (being the first confirmed record of this species in
1665-438: The river exceed national guidelines. In 2015 the program recommended against consuming shellfish and cautioned against consuming fish in general. Nutrient levels in the Derwent between 2010 and 2015 increased in the upper estuary (between Bridgewater and New Norfolk) where there had been algal blooms . A large proportion of toxic heavy metal contamination stems from legacy pollution caused by major industries that discharge into
1710-633: The river including Nyrstar Hobart , a historic smelter establish at Lutana in 1916, and the Norske Skog Boyer paper mill at Boyer which opened in 1941. The Derwent adjoins or flows through the Pittwater–Orielton Lagoon , Interlaken Lakeside Reserve and Goulds Lagoon, all wetlands of significance protected under the Ramsar Convention . In recent years, southern right whales finally started making appearance in
1755-422: The river rises. The Derwent is mentioned in the song, Mt Wellington Reverie by Australian band, Augie March . Hobart is located in the foothills of Mount Wellington . Palawa kani Palawa kani is a constructed language created by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre as a composite Tasmanian language , based on reconstructed vocabulary from the limited accounts of the various languages once spoken by
1800-706: The river) have been recorded feeding in the River Derwent for the first time since the whaling days of the 1800s. The rare spotted handfish ( Brachionichthys hirsutus ), whose only habitat is in the Derwent estuary and surrounds, was the first marine fish to be listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List , in 1996. The fish is threatened by the Northern Pacific seastar's invasion into southern Australian waters . The Northern Pacific seastar ( Asterias amurensis ), now firmly established in
1845-483: The surrounding reserve are home to various species of wildlife. Native mammals include the southern brown bandicoot ( Isoodon obesulus ) and the water rat ( Hydromys chrysogaster ). A variety of birds are also present, such as the musk lorikeet ( Glossopsitta concinna ), swift parrot ( Lathamus discolor ), and the Tasmanian masked owl ( Tyto novaehollandiae castanops ). The area also provides suitable habitat for
River Derwent (Tasmania) - Misplaced Pages Continue
1890-683: The two lane Bridgewater Bridge and Causeway . Until 1964 the Derwent was crossed by the unique Hobart Bridge , a floating concrete structure just upstream from where the Tasman Bridge now stands. Travelling further north from the Bridgewater crossing, the next crossing point is the Blair Street Bridge at New Norfolk , slightly north of the point where the Derwent reverts from seawater to fresh water , Bushy Park , Upper Meadowbank Lake , Lake Repulse Road, Wayatinah , and
1935-515: Was formerly known as Asbestos Range National Park is now known as Narawntapu National Park . Palawa kani has been formally legitimated through the Tasmanian governmental Aboriginal and Dual Naming Policy of 2013, which "allows for an Aboriginal and an introduced name to be used together as the official name and for new landmarks to be named according to their Aboriginal heritage". These include kanamaluka / Tamar River and kunanyi / Mount Wellington . Where no historical recorded name can be found,
1980-533: Was inhabited by the Mouheneener people for at least 8,000 years before British settlement. Evidence of their occupation is found in many middens along the banks of the river. The first European to chart the river was Bruni d'Entrecasteaux , who named it the Rivière du Nord in 1793. Later that same year, John Hayes explored the river and named it after the River Derwent , which runs past his birthplace of Bridekirk , Cumberland . When first explored by Europeans,
2025-540: Was originally called Kangaroo Point and was settled in the 1820s. Its name was changed in the 1830s to "Bellerive," meaning "beautiful shore" in French. Historically, the beach has been a hub of local activity, used for exercise, beachcombing , horse racing, regattas, sailing, and swimming. In 2015, the Clarence City Council developed a "master plan" for Bellerive Beach, which proposed amenities including
#22977