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Tasmanian Language
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. Brian Plomley, 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 Phonograph cylinder, wax cylinder recordings of Aboriginal songs, the only existing audio recording of a Tasmanian la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fanny Cochrane Smith
Fanny Cochrane Smith (December 1834 – 24 February 1905) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian, born in December 1834. She is considered to be the last fluent speaker of the Flinders Island lingua franca, a Tasmanian language, and her wax cylinder recordings of songs are the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania's indigenous languages. Her recordings were inducted into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register in 2017. Early life Fanny Cochrane's mother Tanganutura and a man named Nicremeric or Nicermenic, sometimes reported as her father, were two of the Tasmanian Aboriginals settled on Flinders Island in the 1830s by George Augustus Robinson; according to Norman Tindale her father was Cottrel Cochrane, of European descent, and Nicremeric was her stepfather. She was born at Settlement Point (or Wybalenna, meaning Black Man's House) on Flinders Island. No indigenous name is known; Robinson gave European names to all the Indigenous Tasmanians who arrived at the island as part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
