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The word “corona pandemic” was often expected as the word of the year 2020, writes the jury of the Society for the German Language (GfdS) in their reasoning for its choice. And indeed, unsurprisingly, the term won the race. As word of the year, the “crown pandemic” not only represents what, in the opinion of Chancellor Merkel and many experts, has been the worst crisis since World War II, the jury wrote in their message.
Linguistically, the term also represents a multitude of new word formations: corona virus, crisis, numbers, year, corona demo, hotspot, warning app, corona-related, plagued. The extent of the pandemic can also be seen in the rest of the top ten, which is almost entirely based on it.
The complete top ten
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Corona-Pandemie
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Emergency shutdown
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Conspiracy tale
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Black lives matter
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AHA
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systemically relevant
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Triage
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Ghost games
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Gendersternchen
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Staying healthy!
With “Black Lives Matter” and “Gendersternchen”, only two words that have nothing to do with Corona made it onto the list. In its detailed justification, the jury of the Society for German Language writes that a new era has established itself in people’s minds: before and after Corona. Internet research in late November yielded nine million records for the phrase “in the time of Corona.”
Pay particular attention to the use of the term “Corona”: the name of the virus, which originally meant “rays of the sun”, has developed its own acronym that can convey different meanings depending on its use. In any case, the virus could not harm linguistic creativity. As examples of new words, the Society for the German Language names, for example, “long-term”, “coronary” and “covidiots” for crown deniers.
The choice of a word of the year is not always as clear as 2020. In 2019, for example, the GfdS selected the term “Respectful”, while the term “Fridays for Future”, which is still very present, only came in third place. The word of the year was chosen for the first time in 1971 (then: »rebel«), since 1977 regularly (»scene«).
