At this time of year, it is as impossible to avoid listmania as it is to avoid a reprise of Boney M’s Christmas album. So I decided to blog about lists. Well, the one subset of Listopia that has occupied my mind since the second half of November. That’s when dictionaries from around the world began to jostle to declare their Word of the Year.
Yes, even dictionaries, those quaint relics of bygone days, succumb to an annual War of the Words: in one metaphorical corner of the world, Collins and Oxford team up to represent Anglophones of one persuasion; in the other, it’s Merriam-Webster who bear the standard.
The reveals happen slowly, just like in a good book, but I will spare you the agony of waiting until the end to discover the winners: the OED declared climate emergency as its top pick[1]; Collins Dictionary went with climate strike.[2]
In Belgium, Le Soir and RTBF created a shortlist that includes: eco-anxieté (self-explanatory); gilet jaune (a social movement denouncing economic measures that affect vulnerable populations); collapsologie (the study of the collapse of industrial civilizations); and nasser (to surround demonstrators in a mousetrap set by police).[3]
This morning, Le Petit Robert declared “féminicide” as the French new word of the year.[4]
As Australia burns, the word that beat out climate emergency was voice (because the phrase “Aboriginal voice” was enshrined in the Australian constitution for the first time this year).[5]
In South Africa, the Afrikaans word of the year is staatskaping (state capture), [6] which is what occurs when private interests influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage.
It would seem that this choice could be as relevant in North America as it is in South Africa, but no: Merriam-Webster declared the gender-neutral word “they” as its Word of the Year.[7]
The Chinese, too, have weighed up options for their character of the year. Shortlists differ: as of this morning, the Chinese National Language Monitoring and Research Center have included open, business, wall, tax, 5G and parade among their recommendations for the 2019 characters and words. Democracy, a word that was on the list in November, was no longer there. [8] Another Chinese list includes
"Love (爱)", "stability (稳)", "integration (融)", "innovation (创)", and "minus (减)" are the top five Chinese characters of the year in China, and "I and my country (我和我的祖国)", "5G", "study to strengthen the country (学习强国)", "hardcore (硬核)", and "It's too much for me (我太南了)" are waiting to be selected as the word of the year in China.
The candidates for international Chinese character of the year are "hard (难)", "separate (脱)", "fire (火)", "core (芯)" and "tyrant (霸)", and those for the international Chinese word of the year are "Notre-Dame (巴黎圣母院)", "block chain (区块链)", "trade conflict (贸易摩擦)", "black hole photo (黑洞照片)" and "Brexit (脱欧)". [9]
And this is where my festive cheer dissipates and cynicism takes over: While the world burns, as the oceans continue to rise, as the wealth gap increases and private interests take control of American democracy, what concerned Americans most in 2019 according to Merriam-Webster, was the use of pronouns. While the rest of the world looked outward and fretted over the collective future of humanity, China wanted to make sure that it was business as usual and that fervent nationalism reigned supreme.
As best I can determine, love triumphed in China. And so here we sit on Christmas Eve, celebrating the birth of a person who would, according to Christianity’s Holy Writ, exemplifies love and who would eventually died on a cross so that humanity could be saved. We hope they succeed.
Notes
[1] https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/
[2] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty
[3] https://plus.lesoir.be/265254/article/2019-12-06/nouveau-mot-de-lannee-2019-vous-de-voter
[4] https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/201912/20/01-5254583-feminicide-mot-de-lannee-du-petit-robert.php
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/09/voice-named-2019-word-of-the-year-by-australian-national-dictionary-centre
[6] https://maroelamedia.co.za/nuus/sa-nuus/sa-se-woord-van-die-jaar-aangekondig/
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/10/they-beats-the-2019-word-of-the-year-merriam-webster
[8] http://www.china.org.cn/china/Off_the_Wire/2019-11/21/content_75429468.htm
[9] https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-10/-5G-and-Love-shortlisted-for-Chinese-character-of-the-year-MjG08QAQyk/index.html