December 2021 Edition
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The Japanese Words That Disappear

New words added to a dictionary reflect not only technological changes, but also social changes, and the mindset of their place and time. The same can be said about words that disappear.
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On the 17th of December 2021, the Japanese dictionary Sanseido will publish its new edition in eight years. 3,500 new words enter the dictionarywhile 1,100 of them disappear.
The criteria in determining whether to add or keep a word in the dictionary are: “Are people using it in their daily lives?” and “Is it just a trend or is it going to be used for a long time?”
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Among the 1,100 words to disappear in this edition is the word “kogyaru.” This term was mainly used to refer to a specific kind of female fashion especially popular during the ‘90s. Nowadays, the phenomenon as it used to be 30 years ago has disappeared, but not the spirit of fashionable and free-spirited young females. So, the term mainly used to express it today, “gyaru,” remains in the dictionary.
Other disappearing words include “keiban,” an abbreviation for “keitai bango” (cellphone number). In current Japan, where exchanging LINE IDs has replaced exchanging phone numbers (LINE is the most used messaging application in Japan), that piece of slang has faded away. In that context, it is surprising that the word “tereka” (prepaid landline phone card) also disappears in this edition and not sooner.

Among the 3,500 words making their entry this time, we can find the word “sosharudistansu” - social distancing. We can only hope that this word becomes useless very soon.

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