This article examines the word histories of 12 nouns (eight zoonyms, two other lifeform names, and two toponyms) in Mixtec, a shallow or emergent language family of Mesoamerica. It argues that these nouns—now morphologically opaque—are fused compounds that arose from the Mixtec vocabulary of the mantic count of 260 days, a temporal organization that was part of the common cultural heritage of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican peoples. With the European colonization and persecution of Mesoamerican religious practices, the use of the mantic count was abandoned. It was at this time that the compounds would have been demotivated; that is, the internal morphological structure would have become inaccessible to speakers who could no longer relate it to the mantic cycle. This then enriched the lexicon, creating etymological pairs for the same, or similar, referents. It is suggested that the survival of the eight zoonyms may have to do with their use in the context of omens.

This article provides an overview of the Russian origin of Karelian cow names. It explores what the Russian-origin names mean, what the most common principles of naming are, and whether Russian names have Karelian equivalents. Attention is also paid to the spatial and temporal variation of the names. The data were collected in the 2010s by means of interviews. The data are compared with the name data recorded in the Dictionary of Karelian (KKS). The KKS data reveal extensive adaptation to the Karelian language, whereas in the interview data there is less adaptation to Karelian and the names are often thoroughly Russian. In the KKS data the most common principle of naming is the time of birth, and names based on colouration are also common. According to both data sets, the principles of naming have remained relatively consistent, and the data reveal no great spatial differences in the occurrence of names.