Little Swanport language

Little Swanport
Region	region of Little Swanport, eastern Tasmania
Ethnicity	Oyster Bay tribe of Tasmanians
Extinct	19th century
Language family	Eastern Tasmanian Oyster Bay Little Swanport; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	None; oyst1235 (Oyster Bay + Little Swanport) [1]
AIATSIS [2]	T15

Last updated July 10, 2019

Little Swanport Tasmanian is an aboriginal language of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern.^[3] It was spoken near the modern town of Little Swanport on the east coast. Dixon & Crowley had noted that it appeared to be distinct, but were not sure if it constituted a separate language from other word lists collected near Oyster Bay.^[4]

Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 km (150 mi) to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 526,700 as of March 2018. Just over forty percent of the population resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city, Hobart.

Little Swanport is a locality within the Glamorgan Spring Bay LGA in Tasmania. It is especially significant for the Little Swanport language as well as the Little Swanport River.

The Little Swanport language is attested in a list of 211 words collected by George Augustus Robinson.^[5]

George Augustus Robinson was a British builder and untrained preacher. He was the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Port Phillip District, from 1839 to 1849. Prior to this appointment by the Colonial Office in Great Britain, he had been called upon to mount a "friendly mission" to find the 300 remaining Aboriginals in Tasmania.

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North Midland Tasmanian, or Tyerrernotepanner ("Cheranotipana"), was an aboriginal language of northeastern Tasmania, along the Tamar River and inland of Ben Lomond and Great Oyster Bay.

Oyster Bay Tasmanian, or Paredarerme ("Paritarami"), is an aboriginal language of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern. It was spoken along the central eastern coast of the island by the Oyster Bay tribe, and in the interior by the Big River tribe. Records of the Big River dialect, Lairmairrener ("Lemerina"), indicate that it was no more distinct than the vocabularies collected along the coast around Oyster Bay; indeed, Little Swanport appears to have been a separate language.

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Bruny Island Tasmanian, or Nuenonne ("Nyunoni"), a name shared with Southeast Tasmanian, is an aboriginal language or pair of languages of Tasmania in the reconstruction of Claire Bowern. It was spoken on Bruny Island, off the southeastern coast of Tasmania, by the Bruny tribe.

References

↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Oyster Bay-Big River-Little Swanport". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
↑ T15 Little Swanport at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
↑ Claire Bowern, September 2012, "The riddle of Tasmanian languages", Proc. R. Soc. B, 279, 4590–4595, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1842
↑ Crowley, T; Dixon, R. M. W. (1981). "Tasmanian". In Dixon, R. M. W.; Blake, B. J. (eds.). Handbook of Australian languages. Vol 2. Canberra: Australian National University Press. pp. 394–421.
↑ Bowern (2012), supplement

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[Glottolog2-1] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Oyster Bay-Big River-Little Swanport". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[AIATSIS-2] T15 Little Swanport at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

[Bowern-3] Claire Bowern, September 2012, "The riddle of Tasmanian languages", Proc. R. Soc. B, 279, 4590–4595, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1842

[4] Crowley, T; Dixon, R. M. W. (1981). "Tasmanian". In Dixon, R. M. W.; Blake, B. J. (eds.). Handbook of Australian languages. Vol 2. Canberra: Australian National University Press. pp. 394–421.

[5] Bowern (2012), supplement