Livestock – Introduced Animal Names in Australian Indigenous Languages: A Cross-linguistic Study of the Semantic and Morphosyntactic Properties of Introduced Animal Names

To analyse the strategies used to lexicalise introduced concepts into Indigenous Australian languages, the author compiled, in an Excel workbook, a corpus of 486 terms for eight introduced animals in 85 Australian language varieties, using reputable language data (secondary and tertiary sources) from published grammars and dictionaries and other language descriptions (all cited). The full language list with details and sources is available in a separate spreadsheet. It contains a full list of the languages investigated, each with its genetic status down to its lowest level as mentioned in the Glottolog database, with iso-639-3 code and coordinates based on the World Atlas of Language Structures database (https://glottolog.org/glottolog/language; https://wals.info/). The languages are listed with their alternative spellings when applicable, and with a reference to the source or sources used. The animal terms are also listed in separate spreadsheets. This allows for data exploration and for the early assessment of the lexicalisation processes used for each term cross-linguistically. Each sheet is organised by columns with the following details: language, geographical location, genetic status, terms, their meaning and corresponding English words, the strategy used to form each new term and the analogy which inspired it if applicable (including attested, probable, and possible). This highlights the largest possible selection of lexicalisation strategies pertaining to each animal. The design of the workbook helps identify semantic and phonological differences that exist between the varied lexical representations for each concept. It also facilitates the development of hypotheses about similarities observed cross-linguistically. Regarding spelling, the names of each item is represented using the convention adopted by the relevant grammar, dictionary or word list consulted – the phonemic or practical orthography used in the original source. Analyses and discussions constitute a separate document.