palawa kani facts for kids

Palawa kani is a special language created by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. It's a mix of words and ideas from the old Tasmanian languages that were once spoken by the Aboriginal Tasmanians in eastern Tasmania.

The centre wants to keep the language mainly for the Aboriginal community while it grows. They believe that Indigenous people should control their own cultural knowledge, including languages. This idea is supported by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Bringing a Language Back

Map showing the approximate ethnic divisions in pre-European Tasmania.

After the British arrived in Tasmania, many of the original Tasmanian languages sadly disappeared. The last person who spoke one of these languages fluently, Fanny Cochrane Smith, passed away in 1905.

In the 1970s, some experts tried to bring these languages back. They looked at old records and even spoke to Fanny Cochrane Smith's granddaughters. However, they found very little information about the grammar or how the languages were used in everyday talk. It was very hard to reconstruct them fully.

Later, in the late 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre decided to create a new language for their community. They wanted to bring back a piece of their lost culture. Because there wasn't enough information to fully revive just one old language, they built palawa kani using parts from several of the original Tasmanian languages. This way, it represents many of the old languages.

How Palawa Kani Is Used Today

Palawa kani was developed in the 1990s by people like Theresa Sainty, Jenny Longey, and June Sculthorpe. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre wants the community to feel strong and confident using the language.

This language project is run by the community itself. It's not taught in regular schools. Instead, people learn it at after-school events, special camps, and trips. Many young people are excited to learn palawa kani. More and more people can use it, some even very well!

Palawa kani has appeared in popular media. In 2017, the cartoon show Little J & Big Cuz had an episode entirely in palawa kani. In 2018, the movie The Nightingale also featured the language. Aboriginal Tasmanian leaders helped make sure it was used correctly.

You can also see palawa kani on signs in national parks and other places. For example, kunanyi is now an official name for Mount Wellington. Also, what was once called Asbestos Range National Park is now known as Narawntapu National Park.

Official Place Names

The Tasmanian government officially recognized palawa kani in 2013. This means that Aboriginal names can be used alongside English names for places. For example, you might see kanamaluka / Tamar River or kunanyi / Mount Wellington.

Some other palawa kani place names exist, but they are not yet official. Some of these are new names that describe the place, rather than very old historical names.

Sounds of Palawa Kani

The sounds in palawa kani are simple and clear. It has sounds like 'a', 'i', 'u', and two special vowel sounds like 'ay' and 'uy'.

The language does not use sounds like 's' (sibilants), which is common in many Aboriginal languages. This is different from English.

The way palawa kani is pronounced today might be different from how the original Tasmanian words sounded. This is because the old records were written down by Europeans who spoke different languages like English, Danish, or French. They might have heard and written the sounds differently than they were actually spoken.

How Palawa Kani Is Written

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre decided that palawa kani should usually be written using only small (lowercase) letters. However, you can use a capital letter for the first letter of a person's name or for names of family groups.

Palawa Kani Grammar Basics

The grammar of palawa kani is quite simple in some ways. For example, nouns (like "dog" or "house") don't change to show if there's one or many. Verbs (action words like "walk" or "run") don't change to show who is doing the action or when it happened.

For example, waranta takara milaythina nara takara means 'we walk where (place) they walked'.

When the language project first started, people thought there was almost no grammar information left from the old Tasmanian languages. They thought they might have to use English grammar rules. But after more study, they found clues about how the old languages worked. They found different word orders, words borrowed from other languages, and ways to add endings to words. These discoveries have been added into palawa kani.

Pronouns

Palawa kani has two main sets of pronouns, which are words like "I," "you," "he," "she," "it," "we," and "they."

To make a pronoun plural, you can add mapali, which means 'many'. So, nara-mapali means 'they'.

You can also add mapali to mana to show 'our' (mana-mapali). The word nika can also mean 'this', like in milaythina nika which means 'their lands' or 'this land'.

Numbers

Here are the numbers in palawa kani:

To say numbers like 11 or 12, you combine them. For example, pamakati is 11, and payakati is 12.

For tens, like 20 or 30, you add -ka to the number. So, payaka is 20, and luwaka is 30. For hundreds, you add -ki, and for thousands, you add -ku. For example, pamaki is 100, and pamaku is 1000.

Sample Text

This is a special speech from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Language Program. It was first used in 2004 to remember an event called the Risdon Cove massacre of 1804.

See also

• Australian Aboriginal languages