Indonesian Exploration of Australia?

I can't find any source talking about whether or not Indonesian peoples - the Malay, the Javans, etc., ever explored Australia. Considering how close it was, and the fact that they were generally seafaring peoples, it seems plausible for there to have been some Indonesian exploration of the Australian continent's northern coast. However, due to the desert, they may see no reason to colonize. Maybe Buddhists, or, more likely, in the later eras Muslims, would try to convert the aborigines?
 
Look at this map of the Australian language families and make your own conclusions.
Australian_language_families.png




A good place to start your search is this Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassan_contact_with_Australia
Good luck!
 
Look at this map of the Australian language families and make your own conclusions.

The two largest ones in the North are part of a larger language family with the dominant one in the South.

The differences between the remainder of the languages of the North have little to do with contact with Indonesia (some of the coastal ones might have some influences, but it's not why they're so different) and more to do with the way Aboriginal Australian languages work and develop combined with geography (their being a big ass desert separating them from the population centers to the South) and more ancient (though relatively recent in the scale of large scale Human migration) migration of Austronesian populations.
 

Cook

Banned
Look at this map of the Australian language families and make your own conclusions.

I do not know where you got that map from but it is total bullshit.

This is a map of Aboriginal language distribution in Australia:

AIL_map.bmp


The source is the language department of Adelaide University.

And if you follow this link: http://www.abc.net.au/indigenous/map/
You get a version of the same map that shows enlarged detail.

I can't find any source talking about whether or not Indonesian peoples - the Malay, the Javans, etc., ever explored Australia. Considering how close it was, and the fact that they were generally seafaring peoples, it seems plausible for there to have been some Indonesian exploration of the Australian continent's northern coast.

There are several maps from the pre-Dutch, Javanese era that show the Australian coast roughly from Cape Laveque through the eastern end of Arnhem land; there is a replica of it at the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. There is also extensive rock art in the Kimberley showing Javanese style dhows - Hardly surprising since islanders have been sailing annually to the north coast to harvest sea cucumber for centuries to sell as far away as mainland China. Arnhem land and the Kimberley isn't desert, just the opposite in fact; Kakadu is an extraordinarily diverse wetlands.
 
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There are several maps from the pre-Dutch, Javanese era that show the Australian coast roughly from Cape Laveque through the eastern end of Arnhem land; there is a replica of it at the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. There is also extensive rock art in the Kimberley showing Javanese style dhows - Hardly surprising since islanders have been sailing annually to the north coast to harvest sea cucumber for centuries to sell as far away as mainland China. Arnhem land and the Kimberley isn't desert, just the opposite in fact; Kakadu is an extraordinarily diverse wetlands.
Hm, so they apparently did explore. Do you think they could have colonized it? They would need a motivation to do so, and I don't know if that would exist, except maybe a religious conversion one.
 
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Macassans from the southwest Celebes went to the northern Australian coast for trepang; in fact, there are plenty of evidence (especially in Arnhem Land) that they interacted the indigenous Australians who lived there, influence the culture of the Yolngu people (the people who lived in Arnhem Land).

As I said in Ridwan Asher's thread:
And if you want a lasting influence of Indonesian colonization of the Top End, there should be an intermarriage between indigenous women and the traders (either Makassarese, Javanese or from any part of Indonesian archipelago), and introducing Malay as the lingua franca, with possible creolization.
 
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I do not know where you got that map from but it is total bullshit.

This is a map of Aboriginal language distribution in Australia:
The top map is accurate showing language families, not individual languages. The Pama-Nyungan family covers most of the continent.
 
Much like Bristol fisherman were 'exploring' the coast of North America years before Cabot the trepang fisherman were 'exploring' northern Australia before Janzoon arrived in 1606.
 

Cook

Banned
The top map is accurate showing language families, not individual languages. The Pama-Nyungan family covers most of the continent.

Here's a tip: do not rely on Wikipedia, or as it should more accurately be labelled: WikImakeitupasIgoalongwithoutbotheringtodoactualresearchpedia.

For starters, the Noongar language of the South West, is unique in not having a commonality with any of the central Australian languages; it is not a case of word meaning drift, it is derived from an entirely different root source, as of course were the Tasmanian languages. The red lines on the Adelaide University map so the major language groupings.
So again, that previous map is simply bullshit.

Hm, so they apparently did explore. Do you think they could have colonized it? They would need a motivation to do so, and I don't know if that would exist, except maybe a religious conversion one.

The Javanese had an empire in the archipelago based on trade with existing cultures and kingdoms. Doubtless if a more aggressively expansionist empire had developed, based on the establishment of Javanese settlements, they would have expanded into the top end of Australia; initial coastal settlements would have made the collection of sea cucumber easier and from there agricultural exploitation could have developed since much of the region resembles the climate and land in the Indonesian archipelago; much of the coastal Kimberley is indistinguishable from Timor, while Kakadu is extraordinarily bountiful.

the Yolngu people (the people who lived in Arnhem Land)

Live, not lived; present, not past tense.
 
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