New Spanish words

Reed Hutchinson

In the last ten years, 2000 new words have entered the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and the Association of Spanish Language Academies (ASALE). Terms such as discman and beatlemania are now officially part of our language. Following the recent publication of her book Las 2000 nuevas palabras del español, the Instituto Cervantes in Los Angeles invites linguist Gelsys María García Lorenzo (UCLA) to reflect on the relationships that link words to dictionaries, on the meaning of the Academies and the work of language academics, or on the influence of some dimensions of social life, such as politics, technology, gastronomy or entertainment, in shaping the lexicon of the world in which we speak, think and feel. Words like cibersex or cybercrime, colacao or nesquick, finde or porfa, are they in the dictionary of the Real Academia Española? Which words have died and no longer appear in it? The research that the guest has done to write her latest book answers these questions and many more.

The Cervantes Institute invites you on an exciting journey through the Dictionary of the Spanish Language and the reasons for its changes over the last decade.

Gelsys M. García Lorenzo is Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). D. in Hispanic Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid, she is the author of several volumes on linguistics, such as Ortografía ilustrada. El libro para mejorar la escritura and editor of the theatrical anthology Anuncia Freud a María (Netherlands, 2017).The Library of Congress included her in its catalog of authors in 2007.

New Spanish words

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