Zoonymy in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras)

Zoonymy in Libras is a subarea of onomastics that have delved into the proper names of animals. This article analyzes the sign names given to pets by deaf individuals participating in the Inventory of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) in the municipality of Rio Branco, state of Acre (Rio Branco Inventory of Libras). The Rio Branco Inventory of Libras is a corpus consisting of 32 interviews with deaf individuals from the state of Acre, totaling approximately 100 hours of video recordings. The Libras Inventory Project is under development in several Brazilian cities: Florianópolis, Maceió, Palmas, Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, Rio Branco, Porto Alegre, Pelotas, and Brasília. The analyses address the semantic-motivational aspects of the pet’s sign names drawing on Sousa’s (2023; 2024a) framework containing three taxonomic classifications for zoonymic studies: zooanatomical aspects (for names motivated by an animal’s physical characteristics), zooethological aspects (for names motivated by an animal’s behavioral or temperamental characteristics), and zooextrinsic aspects (for names motivated by factors external to an animal). This study is theoretically based on Sousa and Dargel (2017), Quadros and Sousa (2021), and Sousa (2022; 2023; 2024a). The findings indicate that the zooanatomical aspect stands out, with 73.3% of the cases, followed by the zooethological aspect (15.6%) and the zooextrinsic aspect (6.7%). Some cases (4.4%) had associated semantic motivations, which led to the proposal of a fourth category, hybrid aspects. As shown in other onomastic studies in Libras, visual characteristics have been a striking motivation in the processes of sign-naming people, places, and pets. Our research also highlighted that Deaf culture and the Deaf experience have influenced the formation of signs in Libras. However, few cases of linguistic borrowing were identified – this differs from what occurs with anthroponyms and toponyms in Libras. Our study contributes to the description of the lexicon in sign languages and to linguistic studies in general.