warr!

[wa:]

an exclamation of surprise, to draw attention to something

palawa kani – the revived language of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, Tasmania, Australia.

Early descriptions by observers from 1798 described warr being ‘hallooed’ ‘very vehemently’ and sounding ‘thrilling’ and ‘galvanic’. Still remembered into the early 1900s in different parts of the state of Tasmania, it has been brought back into use by Tasmanian Aborigines in the revived palawa kani language.

palawa kani is Tasmanian Aboriginal language retrieved from information recorded of the 8 to 16 original languages but is not exactly the same as any of them. As not enough words or information survived of any of the original languages to rebuild any one of them exactly as it was, palawa kani combines words retrieved from as many of the original languages as possible. It is the only Aboriginal language spoken in Tasmania today. This retrieval work began in the late 1990s and Aborigines of all ages can now speak palawa kani and children learn it from infancy.

warr features in tribal songs which were documented by European observers from the 1820s, and among fragments of songs remembered into the twentieth century as late as 1972 by family of Fanny Smith. Songs sung in 1899 by Fanny and recorded on wax cylinder recordings were the only recordings ever made of a Tasmanian Aboriginal language by a native speaker, and are now listed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.

warr! was also still in use in the early 1900s among other Aboriginal families on northeastern Tasmanian offshore islands, quite separate from Fanny’s families in the south of the state.

It was a stand alone exclamation, and also attached on the end of other words or following them, to draw attention to the thing spoken about. The word is still used in both those ways.

Today it is often used as a rallying call in gatherings and protests advocating for the rights of Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

Sources: mina tunapri nina kani. palawa kani Dictionary, 2019.

Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre – palawa kani (tacinc.com.au)

Credits: palawa kani Language Program, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre