The English language has recorded lots of new words this year:
New Scrabble dictionary, 7th edition: New words—and its importance to American English.
2022's hottest words were peculiar and depressing, which makes sense | CNN
‘Goblin mode’: new Oxford word of the year speaks to the times | Language | The Guardian
Here's a very interesting piece on how new words get into the English language - which also raises the question of 'who owns English?' - as noted by the Oxford English Dictionary:
English is picking up brilliant new words from around the world – and that’s a gift
From ‘lepak’ to ‘deurmekaar’, terms borrowed from its 1.75 billion global speakers are enriching the language we share
Who owns the English language? The answer to this question is no longer as straightforward as “the English”. According to the latest figures from the British Council, English is “spoken at a useful level” by about 1.75 billion people. Counted among this vast anglophone population are not only the hundreds of millions who speak English as a first language, but also the hundreds of millions more who speak it as a second or foreign language in different parts of the world...
Today, the predominance of English as a language of science, technology, business, diplomacy and entertainment has given many people around the world a strong incentive to acquire the language. From Brazil to South Korea, Spain to Indonesia, millions of people are learning English, and they too are making their own mark on its development.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has documented many of the words that these new communities of English speakers have added to the vocabulary...
Speakers of world varieties of English are remaking its vocabulary to better express their identities, cultures and everyday realities. In Hong Kong, people exclaim add oil as a show of encouragement or support, an expression literally translated from the Cantonese gā yáu, with reference to petrol being injected into an engine. In the Philippines, many houses have a dirty kitchen, which is not actually a kitchen that is dirty in the sense you think, but a kitchen outside the house where most of the real cooking is done – a necessary convenience in a tropical country where it is best to avoid trapping heat and smells indoors. In Nigeria, a mama put is a street-food stall, and its name comes from the way that its customers usually order food: they say “Mama, put …” to the woman running the stall, and point to the dish they want so it can be put on their plate.
In Oxford University Press’s Gift of Words campaign this year, we have asked people who speak more than one language to “gift” a word from their first to their second language, and vice versa. The responses we have so far received highlight even more words that multilingual English speakers felt they had to borrow from their other languages for lack of a direct equivalent in English: words such as saudade (nostalgic longing) from Portuguese, gezellig (a sense of cosiness and togetherness) from Dutch, nomakanjani (come what may) from isiZulu, and apapacho (affection, comfort) from Nahuatl by way of Spanish.
Calling these borrowed words “gifts” is an important reframing, as many value language purity over diversity and consider external influences a threat to the integrity of a language. But this is in contradiction to how language works, as the borrowing of words is part of the natural evolution of all living languages. English is particularly notable for its ability to absorb elements from other languages, and the previously mentioned loan words join a host of others that English borrowed from Old Norse, Norman French, Latin and Ancient Greek much earlier in its history, including core words such as egg, fashion, universe and economy...
Changing our attitudes towards multilingualism and language variation is vital to fight the linguistic prejudice that causes people to be discriminated against for not using the “right” words or for speaking in the “wrong” accent. Despite all that they have contributed to the enrichment of English, many speakers of varieties other than standard British or American English still find themselves being mocked or losing out on educational or professional opportunities as they are effectively denied the right to use their own language in the way that they want.
It is only when we share ownership of English, and embrace the language in all its diversity, that it can truly be a gift that everyone can benefit from.
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