Bruny Island Tasmanian language

Bruny Island
Nuenonne
RegionBruny Island, Tasmania
EthnicityBruny tribe of Tasmanians
Extinctperhaps 8 May 1876, with the death of Truganini
Eastern Tasmanian
  • Bruny (Southeastern)
    • Bruny Island
Dialects
  • Milligan vocabulary
Language codes
ISO 639-3xpz
Glottologbrun1235
AIATSIS[1]T5 (includes SE Tasmanian)

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.[2] It was spoken on Bruny Island, off the southeastern coast of Tasmania, by the Bruny tribe.

Bruny Island Tasmanian is attested in a list of 986 words collected by Joseph Milligan (published 1857 & 1859); in 515 words collected by George Augustus Robinson; in 273 words from Charles Sterling; and in 111 words from R.A. Roberts (published 1828). The Milligan vocabulary is divergent, and falls out as a distinct language when the lists are compared at p < 0.15, though it falls together with the rest of the island at a looser criterion of p < 0.20.[3]

  1. ^ T5 (includes SE Tasmanian) at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
  2. ^ Claire Bowern, September 2012, "The riddle of Tasmanian languages", Proc. R. Soc. B, 279, 4590–4595, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1842
  3. ^ Bowern (2012), supplement