Usually a synonym for
Australian Aboriginal languages (q.v. for a fuller treatment), but strictly speaking there are some non-
Aboriginal native
languages in
Australia.
The Torres Strait Islanders, who live on a small number of islands between Queensland and Papua New Guinea, are ethnically and linguistically Papuan. There is no similarity between their languages and those of the rest of Australia.
The Tasmanians were destroyed by genocide before their languages could be accurately recorded. It is believed there were several distinct languages on the island, and although what is recorded of them is insufficient to be sure, there is no clear evidence of any link between them and Aboriginal languages. In any case, the opening of Bass Strait had sealed them off from the mainland for so long that no genetic relationship between the languages would be evident. Joseph Greenberg has connected Tasmanian with Papuan and Andamanese into a phylum he calls Indo-Pacific.