Nothing has shaped the past two years like the coronavirus. In line with this, the word for the year 2020 was “Corona pandemic”. Now we have another year of epidemics behind us, Germany is currently in the middle of the fourth wave. The word for the year 2021 is fittingly: “breakwater”.
This was announced by the Society for the German Language (GfdS) in Wiesbaden on Friday morning. The campaign regularly selects terms that, in the opinion of the jury, have linguistically determined political, economic and social life in a special way.
Last year there was also criticism of the somewhat obvious choice. This year the jury was more creative – and more hopeful. “Breakwater” comes from coastal protection and shipbuilding and has assumed a number of new meanings due to the Corona topic, which will also dominate in 2021, it says in one Message from the GfdS. “Whether these will stay in our vocabulary in the long term depends largely on whether we succeed in containing the pandemic in the long term.”
“SolidAHRität” and “Pflexit” in second and third place
In second place this year was “SolidAHRität” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/. “The cross between solidarity and the river name Ahr was originally the name of an aid campaign for vintners damaged by floods, but was also characteristic of the great willingness to help, “said the jury.
“Pflexit” (made up of care and exit) landed in third place.
How much we are concerned with the pandemic in 2021 was shown in places four to ten: This was where “compulsory vaccination” (fourth place), “lockdown children” (sixth place), “booster” (seventh place), “freitesten” ( Eighth place), and “five past twelve” (tenth place). The only other topic in the top ten: the federal election and the future government with “traffic light parties” (fifth place) and “Triell” (ninth place).