Word up
The Flemish are a creative bunch. Every year, they seem to invent a whole galaxy of new words, often to describe new phenomena. In fact, they do so to such an extent that since the beginning of the century, several language institutions have been awarding the most notable newcomer the title Woord Van Het Jaar, word of the year.
Last year around this time, I wrote about the award by dictionary publisher Van Dale. In the year that saw the introduction of the ban on smoking in public places, it was stoeproken that took home the prize. Stoep means pavement; roken means to smoke.
This year, there must have been something else going on. Van Dale’s word of the year for 2012 is frietchinees, meaning Aziatische frituurhouder, an Asian operator of a frituur, a typically Flemish place that sells fries and other fried food.
The Institute for Dutch Lexicology, however, came up with a different winner: pandapunten, or panda points, a term popular among Dutch college students. One panda point equals one week without sex – raising the risk of becoming extinct, like the panda.
Other beauties in the two competitions included weblief, meaning geliefde die je via het internet hebt leren kennen, a romantic interest you met on the internet; and wrijftelefoon, meaning telefoon met een touchscreen, phone with a touchscreen. (Wrijven means to rub.)
The UK Word of the Year 2012, by the way, according to Oxford Dictionaries, is “omnishambles”, meaning “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterised by a string of blunders and miscalculations”.
Over the years, the awards paint something of a history of the society itself. The Woord van Het Jaar or Word of the Year in 2000, according to Dutch language historian Ewoud Sanders, was weblog. In 2009, according to magazine OnzeTaal (OurLanguage), it was twitteren, or to tweet (post something on Twitter).
It seems no coincidence that people started recording new words around de eeuwwisseling, the turn of the century, when the internet began to move into full swing.
Sanders, who was one of the first to spend his days looking for new words, even set up a website where people can report unusual language use, “om alle ontwikkelingen rond de Nederlandse taal vast te leggen,” to record developments around the Dutch language. So next time your kid says something strange, you know where to go.
www.meldpunttaal.be
