Estonians add neologisms to the dictionary
December 2 marks the finish of a word contest initiated by the President on Re-independence day, August 20, to come up with new words that better express foreign concepts in the Estonian language
The winning neologisms will be deemed real Estonian words with full legitimacy alongside other words in the dictionary.
Organizers drew up 11 concepts for which the Estonian language currently either lacks a proper translation, has a complicated expression, borrows a foreign word, or causes confusion due to numerous definitions, reported ETV.
There were 593 participants and 2,123 word proposals. The winner of the contest is Andres Valdre, who proposed the word taristu, meaning infrastructure. Until now, the borrowed word infrastruktuur has been in wide use. Other words that were proposed include kestlik (sustainable), peavoolustamine (mainstreaming), toimeabi (humanitarian aid), tundetaip (emotional intelligence) and penipaun (doggiebag).
At the awards ceremony, 59 participants will be recognized for creative solutions that smoothly preserved the nature of the Estonian language.
The entries were evaluated by 30 judges from the Office of the President and the Institute of the Estonian Language.