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Conference Papers Year : 2023

Indigenous Languages of Australia loanwords in Standard Australian English

Stéfany Thierry

Abstract

Indigenous Languages of Australia (ILA) provided a significant number of words that can be found in Standard Australian English (SAusE) today. These cover a great variety of lexical fields, from flora and fauna (for the most part) to more complex concepts referring to the Dreaming. Based on a corpora consisting of loanwords from ILA, I aim to show how the phonology of source language might have been maintained when entering SAusE vocabulary. I use dictionary data, following the Guerrian school approach, that is not strictly a school but his students following his work (Fournier, Abasq, P. Fournier, Dabouis, Martin, Girard), in addition to oral data collected via different processes (field work, online survey, extraction form YouTube videos). Major references are the Macquarie Dictionary (MD), from different editions, and Australian Aboriginal Words in English: their origin and meaning (Dixon et al. 2006). I led my study for three parameters: lexical stress, consonants and vowels. Based on different perspectives (time, location, lexical field, phonology), this presentation aims to show the pathway followed by those words as they became incorporated into SAusE vocabulary. I will trace their path based on the time they entered the dictionary, the language they originated from and the lexical field they refer/belong to. I will focus on a particular parameter – vowel or consonant gemination – that can be seen as a phonological feature maintained in SAusE. Crucially, I will show that the history of colonization aligns with the ‘history’ of the borrowings from ILA. Restricted bibliography: Dixon, R. M. W., Moore, B., Ramson, W. S., & Thomas, M. (2006). Australian Aboriginal Words in English: Their origin and meaning (Oxford University Press). Oxford University Press. Guierre, L. (1979). Essai sur l’accentuation en anglais contemporain [PhD]. Macquarie Dictionary (fifth edition). (2009). Pan Macmillan. Macquarie Dictionary (eighth edition). (2020). Pan Macmillan. Macquarie Dictionary (online). (s. d.). Pan Macmillan.
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Dates and versions

hal-04279508 , version 1 (10-11-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04279508 , version 1

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Stéfany Thierry. Indigenous Languages of Australia loanwords in Standard Australian English. Australex, Aug 2023, Alice Springs, Australia. ⟨hal-04279508⟩
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