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 the terminal speaker, Fanny Cochrane Smith, survived until 1905.
History of research
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 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 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 is the Palawa kani project.
External classification
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 is rejected by the vast majority of historical linguists.
Languages and language families
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 the island in 1832 and 1834, reported:
Reports from the subsequent settlement at Oyster Cove were similar:
Schmidt (1952) distinguished five languages in the word lists:
Eastern Tasmanian languages
North-East
East: East Central (Oyster Bay), South-East
Western Tasmanian languages
North Coast
West Coast
The Eastern languages seem to share a common vocabulary, and use the nominal particle na. The Western languages use leā instead of na.
Dixon & Crowley (1981)
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 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: