Indigenous Languages of Australia loanwords in Standard Australian English
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.