Historical Language Contact & Tragedy in Forgone Communication

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    Jakelin Troy’s “Language Contact in Early Colonial New South Wales 1788-1791” details real historical accounts of initial contact between English settlers and Aboriginal Australians at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, Australia. The First Fleet is led by Governor Arthur Phillip who eventually established the colony of New South Wales. The Aboriginals and the settlers initially tried communicating on friendly terms. Additionally, aiming to establish a common language was of utmost importance for Phillip. Despite their initial affable interactions, the Aboriginals were eventually upset by the colony’s presence as colonists were stealing from Aboriginals and attacking them, all out of Phillip’s control. Very upset by the failure in communications, Phillip doled out heavy punishments to offenders in an attempt to control aggression. As Aboriginals also began retaliating with violence, he feared an all-out war. Due to the urgency of communication, in an act of desperation Phillip captured a few Aboriginals to force them to learn English. Australian English now has some Aboriginal core vocabulary and vice versa.

    Though certainly not representative of all aspects of colonization, the attempts to interact by communication is fascinating and saddening when realizing how much further communication could have gone in preserving indigenous populations. It should also be noted that the intention of the passage is to almost strictly discuss communication between the two groups, and it does not mean that things like the terrible events represented in The Secret River did not happen. The poor treatment by some settlers despite being the ones impeding on their land falls in line with many of the characters found in The Secret River.

    The fact that the situation got so tense that Phillip kidnapped Aboriginals because of a necessity for an interpreter represents the importance of words and the tragedy of miscommunication. Much of the violence seen in The Secret River could have been avoided, and there was even a chance of coexistence. If absolute colonization was always in England’s cards however, communication would unfortunately have been irrelevant. These events also open up an entirely new disturbing perspective when considering that settlers were content with massacring another population when understanding that communication was possible, but may not have been worth the effort,




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Works Cited

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Braun, S. Stewart. “Rescuing Indigenous Land Ownership: Revising Locke’s Account of Original Appropriation through Cultivation.” Theoria: A Journal of Social & Political Theory, vol. 61, no. 139, June 2014, pp. 68–89. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libproxy.scu.edu/10.3167/th.2014.6113904. Hamilton, Jennifer Mae. “‘Labour against Wilderness’ and the Trouble with Property beyond The Secret River.” Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, vol. 20, no. 2, 2016, pp. 140–55. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libproxy.scu.edu/10.1080/14688417.2016.1166066. Herrero, Dolores. “Crossing The Secret River: From Victim to Perpetrator, or the Silent/Dark Side of the Australian Settlement.” Atlantis: Revista de La Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos, vol. 36, no. 1, June 2014, pp. 87–105. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2014701697&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Troy, Jakelin. “Language Contact in Ear...
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