- Title
- Dissonance surrounding the Aboriginal origin of a selection of placenames in Victoria, Australia : Lessons in lexical ambiguity
- Creator
- Clark, Ian
- Date
- 2014
- Type
- Text; Book chapter
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/100921
- Identifier
- vital:10619
- Identifier
- http://library.federation.edu.au/record=b2615844
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781925021622 (pbk); 9781925021639 (ebk)
- Abstract
- When studying the history of some 3,400 Aboriginal toponyms in Victoria, Australia, the majority of placenames were found to have no equivocalness or ambiguity about them (Clark and Heydon 2002). Although it was not possible to find meanings fro every one of these Aboriginal placenames, in terms of historical accounts and folk etymology there was no ambiguity - the vast majority of the placenames are accepted in the source material as being of Aboriginal origin. This paper concerns some 26 placenames for which there is dissonance or a lack of agreement about whether or not they are Aboriginal in origin. These names are considered in some detail in an effort to resolve their lexical ambiguity and an attempt is made to explain the reasons for the ambiguity and to find any patterns and causal factors. The merits of the claims and counter claims in each case will be examined and an attempt made to categorise the assertion of Aboriginal etymology as either grounded in the historical evidence, or likely to be explained by folk etymology - that is, a false meaning based on its structure or sound that may lack historical basis but has been accepted through common practice, or explained as a false etymology that neither accords with historical evidence nor equates with folk etymologies.
- Publisher
- ANU Press
- Relation
- Indigenous and minority placenames : Australian and international perspectives (Aboriginal history series) Chapter 14 p. 251-272
- Rights
- Copyright © ANU Press
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Rights
- Culturally sensitive
- Subject
- Indigenous placenames; Minority placemames; Toponymy
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