Northeastern Tasmanian is an aboriginal
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
of
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
in the reconstruction of
Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Yale University, and has a secondary appointment in the department of anthropology at Yale.
Career
Bowern re ...
.
[Claire Bowern, September 2012, "The riddle of Tasmanian languages", ''Proc. R. Soc. B'', 279, 4590–4595, ]
Languages
Bayesian phylogenetic analysis suggests (at either p < 0.15 or p < 0.20) that three Northeastern Tasmanian languages are recorded in the 26 unmixed Tasmanian word lists (out of 35 lists known). According to Bowern's analysis, the Lhotsky and Backhouse/Walker lists, which do not record their provenance, together with the "Eastern" Jorgenson list, attest to a previously unidentified language in the northeastern family, as does the "Norman" list of Charles Sterling. The other lists attest to a single language, though the dialect of the Tamar River region (North Midlands tribe) is divergent, and Dixon & Crowley consider it to be a distinct language. There are thus tentatively up to four attested Northeastern Tasmanian languages:
*
Pyemmairre (Northeastern language)
**
Tyerrernotepanner (North Midland language)
*
Lhotsky/Blackhouse
*
"Norman"
These languages cannot be shown to be related to other Tasmanian languages based on existing evidence.
[Bowern (2012), supplement.]
Two of the word lists reported to be from Oyster Bay (see
Eastern Tasmanian languages
Eastern Tasmanian is an aboriginal language family of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern.Claire Bowern, September 2012, "The riddle of Tasmanian languages", ''Proc. R. Soc. B'', 279, 4590–4595,
Languages
Bayesian phylogenet ...
) contain substantial Northeastern admixture, as the authors traveled along the coast collecting "Tasmanian" words, which Bowern believes to be responsible for several classifications linking the languages of the east coast. However, once that admixture is accounted for, the apparent links disappear.
[
]
References
{{Aboriginal peoples in Tasmania
Indigenous Australian languages in Tasmania
Language families