Of the 4,345 native terms for items of acculturation shared by genetically unrelated
languages ( table 8.1 ), 1,329 (30.6%) are European loanwords that have been
referentially extended (formally considered to be native terms in this study). While
some Amerindian languages have occasionally independently extended the same
European loan to the same acculturated item (e.g., a European word for a specific
currency denomination extended to MONEY in general; see chapter 4), widespread
sharing of semantically altered European loans is typically due to their diffusion across
Native American languages. Distributions of referentially extended European terms
are almost always regional in nature, involving languages that are more or less
geographically contiguous (see chapter 11).

For example, the Russian word zadínka, which denotes BACK CUT OF MEAT,
is used as a term for the introduced PIG in several languages spoken in the southwest
corner of Alaska and the immediately adjacent areas. These include languages of two
different genetic groupings, for example, Central Yupik Eskimo sitiinkaq and Pacific
Gulf Yupik sitiinkaaq (both Eskimo-Aleut) and Ahtna sidingah, Tanaina sidinga, and
Eyak Sedinga' (all Athapascan-Eyak). This usage almost certainly developed in a
single language of the region (perhaps even in the local Russian) and was diffused to
others.

In a few cases, geographic distributions are very broad. One of the most widely
distributed extended European loans is modeled on Spanish carta, a label for
LETTER ("epistle") also found in Portuguese. Adopted versions of carta denoting
PAPER (and, sometimes, BOOK as well) occur in numerous Latin American Indian
languages in different genetic groupings. PAPER and BOOK are commonly related
nomenclaturally by languages of the sample. Languages that show semantically
extended carta are not sporadically distributed throughout Latin America but are
spoken in a more or less contiguous, but nonetheless huge, area that encompasses the
circum-Caribbean region and adjacent areas (parts of Central America and Colombia,
Venezuela, and the Guianas) and, to the south, Brazil and Paraguay. Examples include
Insular Carib (Maipuran) carta; Cuna (Chibchan) karta; Guajira (Maipuran)
kararáuta; Taurepän (Carib) kareta; and the Tupí-Guaraní languages, Oyampi kaleta,
Chiriguano cuatía, Guaraní kuatia, and Tupí cuatiara. While carta possibly was
independently expanded to PAPER in two or more languages of this vast area, its

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