Eastern Tasmanian languages

Eastern Tasmanian is an Aboriginal language family of Tasmania in the reconstructed classification of Claire Bowern.

Languages

Bayesian phylogenetic analysis suggests that four to five Eastern Tasmanian languages are recorded in the 26 unmixed Tasmanian word lists. These cannot be shown to be related to other Tasmanian languages based on existing evidence. The languages are:

Eastern Tasmanian
*Oyster Bay
**Oyster Bay
**Little Swanport
*Bruny
**Southeast Tasmanian
**Bruny Island

Two of the lists reported to be from Oyster Bay contain substantial Northeastern admixture, 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.

Descendants

The Flinders Island lingua franca was based primarily on Eastern and Northeastern Tasmanian languages. The English-based Bass Strait Pidgin continued some vocabulary from the lingua franca.
The constructed language Palawa kani is based on many of the same languages as the lingua franca.