Although the topics they refer to are very varied, the terms related to the environment, politics and technology are especially repeated.
The Urgent Spanish Foundation (FundéuRAE), promoted by the Royal Spanish Academy and the EFE Agency, has selected its twelve candidates for the 2023 term.
Each year, the Foundation chooses twelve terms based on two fundamental criteria. Firstly, its presence in the media is taken into account, as well as in the social debate in the Spanish-speaking world. Secondly, it is valued that these voices have some interest from a linguistic point of view: a curious formation, a meaning or a writing that generates doubts among the speakers…
This 2023, the voices that could win the title of FundéuRAE’s word of the year are, arranged alphabetically, amnesty, ecosilence, euribor, FANI, fediverso, fentanyl, war, humanitarian, macrofire, polarization, earthquake and ultrafalse.
The Foundation’s previous words of the year were escrache (2013), selfie (2014), refugee (2015), populism (2016), aporophobia (2017), microplastic (2018), emojis (2019), confinement (2020), vaccine (2021) and artificial intelligence (2022). The winner of this 2023 will be known on December 27.
Amnesty
The word amnesty has been present this year in the public debate in several countries (United Kingdom, Spain…) and, consequently, has appeared in the media. According to the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, it is the ‘forgiveness of certain types of crimes, which extinguishes the responsibility of their authors’. For its part, in the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Legal Spanish, it is defined as ‘a form of exercise of the right of grace that corresponds to public powers’.
Ecosilencio
Formed from the prefix eco-, this word is a suitable alternative to the foreign term greenhushing, which has been extended to refer to the hiding of information about caring for the environment. It mainly applies to companies that, for various reasons, avoid making public the tools they use to make their activity ecological. As for its writing, it is not appropriate to insert a hyphen or a space between the prefix and the word silence, so the recommended spelling is ecosilence, all together.
Euribor
The rise in interest rates around the world to try to control inflation has focused the attention of economic information in 2023. This has resulted in a general increase in the cost of mortgages; The rise in the Euribor (acronym formed from the euro interbank offered rate, that is, the European interbank offer rate) has been one of the most repeated topics of conversation in Spain. From a linguistic point of view, the Foundation has recalled this year that this word is written with a lowercase letter because it is an acronym established as a common noun. Likewise, it is appropriate to write it with an accent on the i as a plain word ending in a consonant other than no s.
FAN
UFOs (acronym for unidentified flying object) have given way to FANI (acronym for unidentified anomalous phenomenon). While the word UFO has been lexicalized and can be written entirely in lowercase, like a common noun, it is preferable to write FANI as an acronym, with capital letters.
Fediverse
Social networks are an essential part of the daily lives of many speakers and have constantly appeared in the media for years. The word fediverso, which comes from the English fediverse, is a valid acronym in Spanish in which the terms federation, diverse and universe have been combined. This term refers to social networks that have been federated so that the user can use them as a single network.
Fentanyl
The crisis that this drug has unleashed in various countries, especially the United States, has multiplied the appearance of the word fentanyl in the news. From a linguistic point of view, it is appropriate, given that it is the common name of a substance and not a brand name, to write it with lower case.
Guerra
The word war has been a constant in the information throughout all the months of the year. The armed conflicts that occur in various parts of the world and have been in the news in 2023 mean that this word is among those selected. But also for its other uses: price war, ideological war, transfer war… The noun war means, according to the academic dictionary, ‘armed struggle between two or more nations or between sides of the same nation’, but also ‘fight or combat, even if it is in a moral sense’ and ‘struggle, opposition, rivalry’. Given the breadth of its meanings, the use of this word has been very present in the social and political debate on a wide variety of topics.
Humanitarian
Natural disasters, war conflicts or immigration have made the voice humanitarian have acquired special relevance during 2023. It appears in combination with a wide variety of terms: humanitarian aid, humanitarian truce, humanitarian corridor…
Traditionally, the adjective humanitarian had been used to refer, among other things, to that which seeks to alleviate the effects of wars and other serious scenarios. However, in international law and, later, among Spanish speakers themselves, its use was established to describe situations that require humanitarian aid, and since 2022 it has been one of the meanings that the dictionary already includes.
academic for this term. Thus, it is also appropriate to combine it with terms such as crisis or catastrophe.
Macroincendio
Hawaii, Canada, Greece and the Spanish island of Tenerife are some of the places that have been hit by flames this year. The word macroincendio, formed with the prefix macro-, which means ‘big’, is written in a single word, and it is not advisable to add a hyphen or insert a space.
Polarization
It is one of the terms that has resonated the most throughout the year, in relation to different issues: political, social, ideas, in the area of social networks… Although, originally, the noun polarization alluded to complementary ideas, as can Being the contrast between sciences and humanities, today it is also used specifically to refer to situations in which there are two extreme approaches or sides, sometimes with an implicit idea of conflict.
Seism
The earthquakes in Syria, Turkey and Morocco, and their serious humanitarian consequences, have filled the front pages of the media around the world for weeks. To refer to these phenomena, the words earthquake and earthquake are equally valid, although they are not used with the same frequency in all countries; While earthquake is the most frequent in the Spanish-speaking world, in Spain seismic is preferred.
Ultrafalso
Artificial intelligence continues to advance and is very present in the debate and conversations of speakers. The term ultrafake (alternative to deepfake) refers to computer systems that, with artificial intelligence techniques, create very realistic manipulated videos, photographs or audio that can deceive the audience. It is common for this noun to also be applied to the files themselves.