Northern Tasmanian is an aboriginal
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
of
Tasmania
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
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 r ...
.
[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 two Northern Tasmanian languages (the
Northern Tasmanian language and the
Port Sorell language) are recorded in the 26 unmixed Tasmanian word lists (out of 35 lists known). Bayesian analysis does not support a connection to other Tasmanian languages. However, manual comparison suggests they are related to the
Western Tasmanian languages
Western 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, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1842
L ...
, which are especially poorly attested, though the similarities may be due to loans.
[Bowern (2012), supplement.]
References
{{Aboriginal peoples in Tasmania
Indigenous Australian languages in Tasmania
Language families