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47-746: 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 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

94-679: A builder and was soon employing several men. He was secretary of the Bethel Union and was a committee member of the Auxiliary Bible Society , also helping to found the Van Diemen's Land Mechanics' Institution. He was joined by his wife and children in April 1826. Conflicts between settlers and Aboriginal Tasmanians had vastly increased during the 1820s, which became known as the Black War . In 1830 Robinson investigated

141-505: A central sound [ə] . Stress appears to have been on the penultimate syllable. Tasmanian languages differ from most of those on the mainland in having words that begin with l or r , as well as with consonant clusters such as br and gr . However, many of the languages of Victoria , across the Bass Strait, also allow initial l , and the language of Gippsland nearest Tasmania, Gunai , also had words beginning with trilled r and

188-470: 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 centre has campaigned for the return of remains of Tasmanian Aboriginal people that were sent abroad, such as those sent to the British Museum . In 2022 Nala Mansell, a campaign coordinator for the centre, called for

235-584: A place where Aboriginal people could practise their cultural traditions and ceremonies never came to fruition. Robinson became Chief Protector of Aborigines in March 1839, managing the Protectorate of Port Phillip with the help of four Assistant Protectors, William Thomas , James Dredge , Edward Stone Parker and Charles Sievwright . Maria, Robinson's wife died in 1848. During his decade of service as Chief Protector he made more than 20 expeditions into

282-461: A record of Aboriginal society and also profiteering from enacting genocidal policies against these same people. He is also remembered today for his enthusiastic role in the supply of Aboriginal skeletal remains to English 'collectors'. Robinson was born on 22 March 1791 in London , England, to William Robinson, a construction worker , and Susannah Robinson ( née Perry). He followed his father into

329-506: 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 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

376-448: A song. Robert M. W. Dixon , who interviewed them as part of his research with Terry Crowley , concluded that "there is virtually no data on the grammar and no running text so that it is impossible to say very much of linguistic interest about the Tasmanian languages". However, from the scant sources that are available, Tasmanian people are seeking to recover their lost languages and traditions. The largest language revival project to date

423-401: Is known of Tasmanian phonology and grammar. Bowern (2012) organises 35 different word lists and attempts to classify them into language families. Fanny Cochrane Smith recorded a series of wax cylinder recordings of Aboriginal songs, the only existing audio recording of a Tasmanian language, though they are of extremely poor quality. In 1972, her granddaughters still remembered some words and

470-451: Is rejected by the vast majority of historical linguists . Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were anywhere from five to sixteen languages on Tasmania, related to one another in perhaps four language families . There are historical records as well that indicate the languages were not mutually intelligible and that a lingua franca was necessary for communication after resettlement on Flinders' Island. J.B. Walker, who visited

517-513: Is the Palawa kani project. Little is known of the languages and no relationship to other languages is demonstrable. It appears that there were several language families on Tasmania, which would be in keeping with the long period of human habitation on the island. In the 1970s Joseph Greenberg proposed an Indo-Pacific superfamily which includes Tasmanian along with Andamanese and Papuan (but not Australian ). However, this superfamily proposal

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564-519: Is uncertain, due to the poor nature of the transcriptions. Schmidt (1952) reconstructed the following for East-central and South-east Tasmanian, as well as parts from Blake; Dixon (1981): There may have also been a lamino-dental nasal [ n̪ ], as well as a glottal stop . Vowels included five short / a e i o u /, and five long vowels / aː eː iː oː uː /, and nasal vowels such as " [ʌ̃] " in French pronunciations. Vowels in unstressed positions may be heard as

611-693: The Aboriginal Protection Board in Port Phillip District , New South Wales in 1839, a position he held until 1849. His documentation of his many travels around what is now the state of Victoria are still a uniquely significant source of historical and cultural information about the Indigenous people of this region and their destruction by British colonists. Robinson is remembered as a complex and controversial individual who played an important role in both preserving

658-528: The Cape Grim massacre that had occurred in 1828 and reported that 30 Aborigines had been massacred. Robinson was to be brought in as a "conciliator" between settlers and Aboriginal people. His mission was to round up the Aboriginal people to resettle them at the camp of Wybalenna on Flinders Island . Robinson befriended Truganini , to whom he promised food, housing and security on Flinders Island until

705-560: The Convincing Ground massacre that had occurred in 1833 or 1834. In 1841 he investigated a gunshot incident, and whilst travelling came across the aboriginal aquaculture site of Lake Condah , recording its dimensions. His journals are regarded as amongst the most important documents on the early years of European settlement in Victoria . They offer significant observations on Koorie culture, early Melbourne personalities,

752-474: The terminal speaker , Fanny Cochrane Smith , survived until 1905. Tasmanian languages are attested by three dozen word lists, the most extensive being those of Joseph Milligan and George Augustus Robinson . All these show a poor grasp of the sounds of Tasmanian, which appear to have been fairly typical of Australian languages in this parameter . Plomley (1976) presents all the lexical data available to him in 1976. Crowley and Dixon (1981) summarise what little

799-445: The 35 word lists mix data from various locations, and even for the rest, in some cases the location is not recorded. Bowern (2012) used a clustering algorithm to identify language admixture, and further techniques to conclude that the 26 unmixed lists with more than 100 words record twelve Tasmanian varieties (at p < 0.15) that may be assumed to be distinct languages. Due to the poor attestation, these varieties have no names apart from

846-539: The Aboriginal communities there. He also collected human skulls and other Aboriginal remains. After his death, his widow Rose sold the items to many museums. The British Museum has 138 items relating to Robinson's time in Australia, including Aboriginal artefacts, prints and drawings. Joseph Barnard Davis acquired many from Robinson's widow in the 1860s, and it may be through his activities that objects subsequently found their way into other collections, for example at

893-555: The Apocalypse provides a detailed account of Robinson's personal relationship with Truganini and the traumatic psychological and cultural shifts experienced by Aboriginal Tasmanians . Tasmanian artist Julie Gough referenced Robinson and his work in her recent exhibition Tense Past at Tasmania Museum & Art Gallery. During Robinson's time in Tasmania and Victoria, he collected a large number of objects and artworks from

940-614: The Bass Strait Islands, were given the power to decide who is of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent at the state level (entitlement to government Aboriginal services). Palawa recognise only descendants of the Bass Strait Island community as Aboriginal and do not consider as Aboriginal the Lia Pootah , who claim descent, based on oral traditions, from Tasmanian mainland Aboriginal communities. The Lia Pootah feel that

987-746: The Equator , by Mark Twain . Robert Drewes ' 'Savage Crows' also incorporates the work of Robinson into the plot. See also Mudrooroo 's critical portrayal of Robinson in Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World , Master of the Ghost Dreaming and his Vampire Trilogy: The Undying , Underground and The Promised Land . Additionally, Cassandra Pybus ' 2020 biography of Truganini , entitled Truganini: Journey Through

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1034-455: The Palawa controlled Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre does not represent them politically. Since 2007 there have been initiatives to introduce DNA testing to establish family history in descendant subgroups. This is strongly opposed by the Palawa and has drawn an angry reaction from some quarters, as some have claimed " spiritual connection" with Aboriginality distinct from, but not as important as

1081-592: The age of 75. Semi-fictional accounts of Robinson's travels are included in Matthew Kneale 's book English Passengers and in T. C. Boyle 's short story "The Extinction Tales", and Robinson is a major character in Richard Flanagan 's 2008 novel Wanting . There is a reference to Robinson in the book The Lost Diamonds of Killiecrankie by Gary Crew and Peter Gouldthorpe , and in Following

1128-635: The building trade, married Maria Amelia Evans on 28 February 1814, and had five children over the next ten years. He worked as a bricklayer at the Chatham Dockyard and had some involvement with the construction of martello towers along England's coast. Robinson then became a builder in London manufacturing bricks and tiles. In 1823, Robinson was involved in a financial scandal with a religious institution which resulted in him fleeing England. He made for Scotland , leaving his wife and family under

1175-509: The camp conditions deteriorated and many of the residents died of ill health and homesickness. Because of this, Robinson's place in history is generally viewed as negative, especially within the current Aboriginal community. Some historians agree that his initial intentions were genuine, but his abandonment of the community is viewed as a turning point for the worse for the Tasmanian Aboriginals. Moreover, his promises of providing

1222-676: The care of his brother. He sought to leave Britain altogether, initially purchasing a ticket to the Mosquito Coast as part of Gregor MacGregor 's fraudulent Poyais scheme . But after hearing that it was a swindle, he instead purchased a steerage berth on a ship to Australia . Robinson failed to convince his wife to come with him and sailed in September 1823 alone. Robinson arrived in Hobart in January 1824. He established himself as

1269-419: The clusters br and gr. Blench (2008) notes however that some supposed Tasmanian speakers may actually have been indigenous people from South (mainland) Australia. East-central Tasmanian is used for illustration, unless otherwise indicated. There is no evidence of plurality or gender. The nominal particle may have marked the end of a noun phrase. Possession was indicated by the possessor (noun) dropping

1316-597: The existence of a genetic link. The Lia Pootah object to the current test used to prove Aboriginality as they believe it favours the Palawa, a DNA test would circumvent barriers to Lia Pootah recognition, or disprove their claims to Aboriginality. In April 2000, the Tasmanian Government Legislative Council Select Committee on Aboriginal Lands discussed the difficulty of determining Aboriginality based on oral traditions. An example given by Prof. Cassandra Pybus

1363-650: The four districts of the Aboriginal Protectorate. Robinson was paid a total of £8000 in his role as protector of Aborigines. He built a small community that included a church and coined the area 'Point Civilisation'. Many of the Aborigines who lived at the port had been removed under false pretenses from their true home in Tasmania. In 1841 and 1842, Robinson traveled to western Victoria with Tunnerminnerwait where he investigated and reported on

1410-501: The island in 1832 and 1834, reported: Robert Clark, the catechist, states that on his arrival at the Flinders' Settlement in 1834, eight or ten different languages or dialects were spoken amongst the 200 natives then at the establishment, and that the blacks were 'instructing each other to speak their respective tongues'. Reports from the subsequent settlement at Oyster Cove were similar: The Aboriginal dialects made it difficult for

1457-559: The landscape and settler society. The Port Phillip Protectorate was abolished on 31 December 1849, with Robinson receiving a pension. He returned to England in 1852 and the following year married Rose Pyne, with whom he had another five children. The couple spent five years living in Europe, mostly in Paris and Rome. In 1859 they settled in Bath, England , where Robinson died on 18 October 1866 at

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1504-767: The languages of the east coast. Only 24 words, out of 3,412, are found in all five branches, and most of these are words for recently introduced items, such as guns and cattle, or cultural or mythological terms which could easily be borrowed. Thus there is no good evidence for a Tasmanian language family. There is, however, slight evidence that the northern and western families may be distantly related (the western varieties are especially poorly attested). The only words found in all regions that are not obvious candidates for borrowing and which do not have serious problems with attestation are *pene- 'laugh', *taway 'go', *liya 'water', *wii 'wood', and perhaps *tina 'belly'. However, there are other local words for 'laugh', 'water', and 'belly', and

1551-480: The members of one family to understand that of another; "now however they all seem to have merged into one" Schmidt (1952) distinguished five languages in the word lists: The Eastern languages seem to share a common vocabulary, and use the nominal particle na . The Western languages use leā instead of na . Dixon and Crowley (1981) reviewed the data. They evaluate 13 local varieties, and find 6 to 8 languages, with no conclusion on two additional varieties (those of

1598-443: The names of the wordlists they are recorded in. They fall into five clusters; Bayesian phylogenetic methods demonstrate that two of these are clearly related, but that the others cannot be related to each other (that is, they are separate language families) based on existing evidence. Given the length of human habitation on Tasmania, it should not be expected for the languages to be demonstrably related to each other. The families, and

1645-550: The nominal particle: Postpositions , or perhaps case endings, include le/li 'behind', ra 'without', to/ta (change in direction): There is also an adverbial suffix -re in lene-re 'backwards'. Adjectives follow the noun, and some end in -ne ( pāwine 'small') or -ak ( mawbak 'black', tunak 'cold'). Only singular personal pronouns are known: mī-na 'I', nī-na 'you', nara 's/he'. (In Northeast Tas, these are mi-na, ni-na, nara .) These form possessive suffixes: loa-mi 'my woman'. Pronouns might be incorporated in

1692-653: The number of attested languages, are: Bowern identifies several of the wordlists of unknown provenance: The Norman list is northeastern, for example, while the Lhotsky and Blackhouse lists attest to an additional language in the northeastern family; the Fisher list is western, as are the Plomley lists, though with admixture. Two of the lists reported to be from Oyster Bay contain substantial northeastern admixture, which Bowern believes to be responsible for classifications linking

1739-410: The reflexes of *taway are so similar as to be suspicious. *Wii is therefore the most promising; it is found as wiya, wina, wikina ( -na is a common ending) and wii , glossed as wood, tree, brush, or timber. Although there is no evidence that the Tasmanian languages were related to the languages of mainland Australia (and if they were, they would presumably be related to languages which had been lost to

1786-642: The removal of a statue of William Crowther from Franklin Square in Hobart . Crowther, a surgeon and former Premier of Tasmania is primarily known for his actions surrounding the theft, decapitation and mutilation of the body of the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal man, William Lanne in 1869. A dispute exists within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, however, over what constitutes Aboriginality . The Palawa, mainly descendants of white male sealers and Tasmanian Aboriginal women who settled on

1833-429: The settlements. The unattested Bass Strait Pidgin of Flinders Island consisted primarily of English vocabulary, but is reported to have had a mixture of words from Tasmanian languages, introduced by the women whom the island's sealers had abducted from Tasmania. Palawa kani is an in-progress constructed language, built from a composite of surviving words from various Tasmanian Aboriginal languages. The phonology

1880-585: The situation on the mainland had calmed down. With Truganini, Robinson succeeded in forging an agreement with the Big River and Oyster Bay peoples, and by the end of 1835, nearly all the Aboriginal people had been relocated to the new settlement. Robinson's involvement with the Aboriginal Tasmanians ended soon after this, though, and the Wybalenna settlement became more akin to a prison as

1927-536: The surviving Indigenous clans during the Black War . The mission later evolved into a series of further expeditions to round-up these survivors and place them into enforced exile at the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island . From 1835 to 1839, Robinson became the superintendent of this facility, where his mismanagement resulted in the deaths of many of those exiled. He was appointed Chief Protector of Aborigines by

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1974-426: The verb: tiena-mia-pe 'give me!'. Demonstrative pronouns are wa/we 'this' and ni/ne 'that': Riena narra wa 'this is my hand'. marra(wa) 'one', pʲa(wa) 'two'. The negative particle is noia In Southeast Tas., suffixes -gara/-gera and -gana/-gena appear on verbs. Their meaning is unknown: Some basic words: The difficulty in analysing the records is apparent in the conflicting recorded forms for

2021-421: The wave of Pama–Nyungan expansion), the fact that there is no established Tasmanian family should be kept in mind when attempting to establish such connections. It is unknown if the Tasmanian lingua franca was a koine , creole , pidgin , or mixed language . However, its vocabulary was evidently predominantly that of the eastern and the northeastern languages because of the dominance of those peoples on

2068-401: The west coast) due to lack of data. Listed here (clockwise from the northwest) with their Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) codes, they are: The two western varieties are South-western (T10*) and Macquarie Harbour (T6) [southern and northern ends of SW region on map] One of the difficulties in interpreting Tasmanian data is the fact that some of

2115-417: The words for "two" ("Fr" means a French transcription): Given the possibility that suffixes are responsible for some of the differences, there are still clearly several distinct words, though it is difficult to say how many or what their forms were. George Augustus Robinson George Augustus Robinson (22 March 1791 – 18 October 1866) was an English born builder and self-trained preacher who

2162-558: Was employed by the British colonial authorities to conciliate the Indigenous Australians of Van Diemen's Land and the Port Phillip District to the process of British invasion and colonialisation . In 1830, Robinson, with the guidance of Aboriginal Tasmanians such as Truganini and Woureddy , led what became known as "the friendly mission" around Van Diemen’s Land , which was organised to establish contact with

2209-457: Was the claim by the Huon and Channel Aboriginal people who had an oral history of descent from two Aboriginal women. Research found that both were non-Aboriginal convict women. Tasmanian languages The Tasmanian languages were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania , used by Aboriginal Tasmanians . The languages were last used for daily communication in the 1830s, although

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