"I'm Fanny Smith. I was born on Flinders Island. I am the daughter of Tangnarootoora, of the East Coast Tribe. I am just 70 years of age."

Nearly 120 years after Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Fanny Cochrane Smith spoke these words into the bell of a gramophone, her recordings have been inducted into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.

Fanny was born in 1834, in the Aboriginal mission of Wybalenna on Flinders Island.

Fanny Cochrane Smith was the last surviving fluent speaker of any Tasmanian Aboriginal language. ( Supplied )

In 1847, her family was moved to Oyster Cove and, following her marriage to William Smith, she settled in Nicholls Rivulet.

Fanny became an esteemed community member and a trailblazer for her people.

According to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), Fanny was celebrated for her "lovely singing voice", and in 1899 a concert was held in her honour where she entertained the crowd with the songs of her people.

Between 1899 and 1903, recordings were made on wax cylinders of Fanny, the last surviving fluent speaker of any Tasmanian Aboriginal language, singing and speaking.

These recordings have been preserved through TMAG and are the only spoken record of any one of the original Tasmanian Aboriginal languages.

Today, the recordings were officially inscribed on UNESCO's Australian Memory of the World Register at a ceremony in Canberra, after a combined effort from TMAG and The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia to have them recognised.

'These are songs of survival'

One of Fanny's descendants, Palawa elder Rodney Dillon, said it was a proud day.

"She was a strong woman, a woman who stood up and spoke the truth about what was going on," he said.

"Bearing in mind she would have known of the atrocities of the things that happened in the past to her families.

"She was singing about what was important to her as an Aboriginal person."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 37 seconds 37 s Part of the 1903 wax cylinder recording of Fanny Cochrane Smith. Download 293.5 KB

Descendant and TMAG Indigenous Cultures curator Liz Tew said the recordings were symbols of resilience.

"These recordings are songs of survival and represent the continued struggle for rights and recognition," she said.

"It is special to have this moment in time recognised in such a significant way."

Recordings have not been played for decades

NFSA senior sound curator Rod Butler said the recordings had not been played since the 1980s, because each time wax cylinders are played they are damaged.

"It is literally a cylinder of wax. The stylus that is used to record is effectively a needle and it scratches a signal into the wax cylinder," he said.

"When it's played back that stylus is excited and amplified and then turned into sound.

"It's a non-electronic process from beginning to end, which is why you hear quite a lot of noise in the recording."