“Russia-Ukraine” is South Africa's most used word of the year for 2023.
In celebration of Dictionary Day on 16 October, the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) announced “Russia-Ukraine” as the country’s word of the year for 2023.
Dictionary Day celebrates the birth of Noah Webster, an American writer best known for publishing the first dictionary in 1806, which he continued to expand for the next 27 years.
PanSALB shortlisted candidate words based on real language use and media research company Focal Points analysed frequency statistics from October 2022 to September 2023 by tracking keywords that were used in credible print, broadcast and online media. “Russia-Ukraine” was selected over “interest rate”, “Brics” and “geopolitics”.
“‘Russia-Ukraine’ came out as the most dominant keyword, accounting for 44% of the total clip count and mentions, followed by ‘Brics’ at 27%,” PanSALB said.
“The prominence of the Russia-Ukraine war in South African public discourse can be
attributed to various factors, including the country’s official stance on the war, the mediation envoy of African leaders led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, its impact on the hosting of the Brics summit and political pressure to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
PanSALBs head of marketing and communication, Ntombentle Huluhulu told the Mail & Guardian that the South African word of the year was broken down into two categories to accommodate social media and “kuning” had been chosen from a shortlist, which included “danko”, “cima”, “ivale mfana”, “bathong” and “10 past 4”.
“A lot of things have happened this past year and the significance is to reflect on the past year and how people express how they feel,” Huluhulu said.
“As you can see, there are social issues in the shortlisted words and it paints a picture of how things are going in the country and the political landscape.”
Furthermore, she said social media was a place of expression, with people borrowing terms from other languages to create a new meaning.
“Words like ‘bathong’ had always been known as a SeSotho/ SeTswana/ SePedi expression but social media has given it a whole new meaning,” Huluhulu said.
“Kuning” emerged with a commanding 61% clip count, followed by “bathong” with 27%.
“‘Kuning’ is an isiZulu word that means ‘it’s a lot’ and is frequently used by social media users to express feeling overwhelmed with too much information or dealing with multiple challenges at once,” PanSALB said.
“Other words and terms that were considered include ‘inflation’, ‘hita hlula’, ‘zama zama’, ‘isigaxa’ and ‘yoh’.”