Cape Barren English is a Kriol (i.e. Australian creole) variety spoken until recently by the Aboriginal populations on Cape Barren Island and Flinders Island in the Furneaux Group off Australia’s island state of Tasmania. There are currently less than six fluent speakers left on the islands.
When the remaining Aborigines were rounded up and sent to Flinders Island, they met up with other Tasmanian and Australian Aboriginal, South Sea Islander and Maori women who had formed family groups with English sealers on the muttonbird-rich islands of the Bass Strait. Consequently Cape Barren English is a mixture of eighteenth-century maritime English and Palawa, with a small sprinkling of other indigenous languages, and with a lexicon highly referent to the muttonbird-harvesting industry.
As a result of the governmental policy of assimilation, the Islanders were encouraged to relocate to the Tasmanian mainland, at times by force (“The Stolen Generation”). This had a devastating effect on the culture and on the language of the people. Efforts to restore a Palawa language have concentrated on creating a reconstructed Aboriginal language rather than on preserving Cape Barren English. With the recent passing of one of the elders, there are now no longer enough able-bodied card-players for the weekly gathering when they would speak it amongst themselves.
Few examples of Cape Barren English exist, adding to its mystique as a “secret” language. Earlier, the speakers were thought to be mumbling, and few successful attempts were made to record it. However some individual words remain in currency. From old Nautical English, “ol’ co’e” (old cove) for “fellow” and “chains” (despite metrification) remain. From Palawa varieties, “warrener” for “seashell” and “kunnigong” for “pigface plant” (Carpobrotus rossii) remain. From muttonbirding, “muttonbird” for “shearwater” (Puffinus tenuirostris, called yolla in Palawa) and “muttonfish” for “abalone” (Haliotis spp.) remain. Some of these have spread to other dialects of Australian English.
Author: Andrys Onsman, 2002
References
Bickford, A., 1973, Audio tapes made on Cape Barren Island of interviews with Miss Annette Mansell and Mrs Claude Mansell, referred to as The Bickford Tapes, courtesy of the author.
Bryant, P., 1989, ‘The south eastern lexical usage region of Australian English’ Australian Journal of Linguistics, vol. 9, no. 1, pp 85–134.
Onsman, A, 2000, ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Cape Barren English,’ Island, vol. 80
Sutton, P., 1976, ‘Cape Barren English,’ (Linguistic Communications 13) Author’s manuscript.
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