MARI RAMIAH R. TINIO 2016-89069 Moore than an animal A brief investigation in 36 Philippine languages on the word cattle Abstract In the Philippines, cattle are common animals seen in rural areas. Though it seems that the animal cattle has been long residing in the country, and may even be considered indigenous to the country. If it were, the terms are expected to be in cognate with one another. However, there is a distinction seen in the forms used for the word cattle. This brief essay aims to examine the term used for ‘cattle’ in 36 Philippine languages. Wherein 30 of the languages use the same form baka, 5 languages use sapi and 1 language use karbaw. Through historical information, lexical and geographical data, hypotheses regarding these dissimilarities were able to be seen. This essay is limited to the general terms used for domesticated cattle, and no distinction of gender and age has been specifically explored. This essay used the data presented in the appendices as the basis for the analyses given. Through the comparison of the lexical data, it has been found that the baka and sapi are loan words from the introducers of the species, the Spaniards and the Indonesians respectively. In addition, it is safe to say that the cattle has only been residing in the Philippines recently (not more than 1000 years). Lexical borrowing is bound to involve semantic change 1 and sound change 2 in the language borrower. 1 Introduction Cattle are perhaps one of the most common animals in the world. Due to their extensive use like meat and dairy production and its strength as a draft animal, certainly cattle are to stay. The cattle belong to the suborder Ruminantia 3 under the order Artiodactyla 4 ; the cattle is then included in the family Bovidae 5 , then to the genus Bos (Herren, 2012). In another note, the cattle is the terminology used to depict a domesticated bovine, in which cow is female and bull is male (Encyclopaedia Britannica). In addition, cow may also be used to indicate a large female animal like the elephant, rhinoceros, and seal (Oxford Dictionaries). Knowing these distinctions will aid in the understanding of the analyses of terms. However, most of the data gathered in the Philippine languages show no distinction of gender in cattle. Available archaeological data has dated the existence of several cattle breeds back to around 2500 B.C., so the domestication of cattle must have been far earlier (Zeuner, 1963). At the present time, the domesticated cattle are seen along fields and roads in the provinces, a source of livelihood. After thousands of years, cattle are now distributed in most countries in the world with several breeds, whether domesticated or not. In the Philippines, the cattle are essential livestock. They are not only a source of a family’s food, but it is also used for commercialization and as a draft animal. 1 Involves the association of, alteration, narrowing, or extension in the meaning of a word (Traugott, 2017) 2 Can be a change in pronunciation due to a phonological rule or over the course of time 3 Animals who chew cud and have several digestive chambers (Herren, 2012) 4 Animals having even-numbered toes such as pigs, goats, sheep (Herren, 2012) 5 Hoofed animal with horns growing from the skull’s frontal bones (Estes, 2009)