“Pandemic”, “fencing”, “covidiot” … and even “shit” are some of the words of the year chosen in different languages by different institutions in this 2020 in which the virus has fully affected all aspects of our lives, including language.
The proof is that, unlike previous years, in which the different words of the year covered a multitude of topics, this time practically all revolve around an aspect of the pandemic that we have suffered for months.
“CROWN-PANDEMIC”, IN GERMAN
The institution that has the honor of starting this tradition in the 1970s with the “Wort des Jahres” is the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache or the German Language Academy, which this year awarded the title “Corona-Pandemie” (‘Coronavirus Pandemic’).
In this direction, without great surprises, some of the institutions that choose the word of the year in English have moved and both the Merriam-Webster dictionary and dictionarul.com have opted for “pandemic” (“pandemic”).
The American Dialect Society, another classic of the words of the year, preferred “covid”, a term that, they explain, “a year ago did not even exist and came to define our lives in 2020”.
“CONFINEMENT”, “LOCKDOWN”, “ISO” …
In Spanish, it is the Fundación del Español Urgente, promoted by the EFE and RAE Agency, which, since 2013, has granted this recognition. This time the chosen one was “prison”, a term that refers to a reality that we have suffered in one way or another around the world and whose meaning was updated this year by the Academy to adapt it to the new reality.
It coincides with the bet of another great English dictionary, Collins, who chose “lock”; while the Australian National Dictionary Center preferred ‘iso’, shortening ‘self-isolation’: ‘the act of staying out of the way as a way of limiting the spread of an infectious disease’.
“COVIDIOTA”
Even in that part of the world, the Macquarie Dictionary, a reference to Australian English, usually chooses two words of the year: one selected by a committee of experts and one from the public. This year, so that there is more variety, they expanded the choice even further: on the one hand, the words referring to the pandemic and, on the other hand, “the terms of the non-pandemic part of life”.
In the first group, experts chose “rona”, a shorthand used in Australia for “coronavirus”, while the public preferred “covidiot” (“covidiot”), alluding to those who ignore health warnings or public safety in a pandemic. .
In the non-pandemic context, the chosen ones were “doomscrolling”, a term difficult to translate into Spanish that refers to the obsession with consuming news (usually bad) and “Karen”, a proper name used in colloquial language to refer to in a contemptuous way towards a certain type of woman (white, middle-aged, demanding, probably racist and anti-vaccination …).
“Anderhalvemetersamenleving”, the company of the meter and a half
Of particular interest is the double choice made this year by Van Dale, a dictionary and dictionary editor in Dutch who, through his followers, chooses one word of the year for the Netherlands and another for the Flemish area of Belgium.
In the first case, the winner is ‘anderhalvemetersamenleving’, which could be translated as ‘society of the meter and a half (distance)’, a term used by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, to define the type of relations in spaces and places of access to public that society will have during the pandemic.
In the flamenco version, the word of the year is “knuffelcontact”, something like “pampering (or hugging)”, a person, apart from any family member, with whom you can have close physical contact during the coronavirus crisis and that you have to be the same at any time to avoid contagion.
The kanji of the year is…
The foundation that regulates aptitude tests in Japanese also chooses a representative kanji (the ideograms used in writing the Japanese language) for each year. This time the chosen one is “mitsu”, which in itself means “full of people” or “close” and which became popular in a new expression invented in pandemic times: “3 mitsu” (or “3C”) ” ) It refers to “closed spaces”, “crowded places” and “close contact areas” which, according to the instructions of the authorities, should be avoided so as not to spread the contagion.
An unprecedented year
That 2020 was a special and difficult year seems obvious. So much so that Oxford University Press, which chose the most recognized English word of the year in 2004, gave up this year. Or rather, you have decided to reorient your choice.
On their website, they explain that “2020 is not a year that can be hosted in a single word of the year”, so they preferred to report more fully on the phenomenal scale of language change and development during of the year ”in a report called“ Words of an Unprecedented Year ”.
It analyzes the evolution of items such as “covid-19”, “blocking” (“closing”), “social distancing” (“physical distancing”) or “reopening” (“reopening”), but also “bushfire” (“fires”). “Black life matters” (“Black lives matter”).
A year of shit
Certainly already, apart from linguistic considerations, the readers of the British newspaper The Guardian were very clear about this and, when asked what is the word that best defines this 2020 for them, they answered with a resounding “shit” (” crap “).
If it was not clear, in second place was “fucked” (“fucked”) and in third place “exhausting” (“exhausting”). A trio not very elegant, but with which it is not difficult to form a fairly accurate definition of what, for many, was the year ending today.