Every year the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) updates the dictionary of the Spanish language with the new terms coined in that period. For the new version about 4,000 new words were added. Many of these are related to technical expressions that were born in the middle of the pandemic, reported The Country of Spain.
(You may be interested in: RAE clarifies the ICT minister and says that the term ‘abudinear’ has not been recognized)
According to this medium, one of the lexicons with the greatest development between 2020 and 2021 was associated with the coronavirus. Words such as hyssop, nasobuco, mask, triage, emergeniologist and urgenciologist were included in the dictionary.
Two compound words related to the COVID-19 they also made the list. It is a social bubble, defined by the RAE as a group of people who can maintain contact with each other with very little risk. New normal was another term added and that defines a new situation that arises after a crisis.
(See also: Covidiots, RAE tells those who fail to comply with biosafety measures; endorses the term)
With the new reality, framed in virtuality, words like webinar, which refers to a virtual seminar, bitcoin and cryptocurrency were coined within the publication.
Among the added terms, there are also the complexities of sexual or gender identity. Polyamory, transgender, cisgender, and pansexual were the novelties for the dictionary.
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Finally, the RAE added some Americanisms, such as the word kicker, which defines someone who strongly kicks a ball, and sambar, which refers to the action of dancing samba. The popular Mexican mother valer is also coined, which denotes when something matters very little.
One morning, Dr. Jennifer Hole was surprised when the parents of one of her 5-year-old patients unexpectedly brought doughnuts to her office, crying and begging her to continue to be their son’s doctor. One week before, Hole requested to see their son at the children’s hospital, but they interpreted that to mean she was dropping them as patients. The child’s treatment required an operating room somewhere else, not from someone else. The family had recently immigrated to the United States from China and only spoke Chinese, a language Hole does not speak. So she used a call-in language line to try and clear things up. However, the hotline had a three-hour wait, which made treatment impossible that day. “When communication stops, the entire patient flow stops — there’s a cascading effect,” Hole says.
As a second-generation immigrant from Managua, Nicaragua, and a native Spanish speaker, Hole knows the challenges of language barriers and was devastated by the undue stress this caused her patient’s family. Unfortunately, this was not the first time a language divide has been an issue in the clinical setting. Throughout Hole’s 10 years as a practicing dentist, she has consistently struggled to find patient translation resources that are medically accurate. So she decided to do something about it.
Hole met Clay Holberg, MSTC ’21, through the master’s in technology commercialization program at UT. Their group assignment eventually evolved into what is now Root Medical Translation, a speech-to-speech, peer-reviewed medical translation platform that enables better understanding between patients and providers, regardless of language. Using his branding and advertising background, Clay named the company Root as a reference to the root of a word. To use the platform, the provider simply scans a QR code, selects both translation languages and speaks into the application. The spoken phrases are instantly translated and spoken aloud in the second language, allowing both parties to accurately and effectively communicate.
“The United States doesn’t have an official language, but if you don’t speak English, you’re in a different system when it comes to medical care,” Holberg says.
Although there are many translation services currently on the market, many are inefficient, inaccurate and noncompliant. “Over the years my colleagues and I have tried Google Translate, subscription-based translation services, in-person language lines and more. I have yet to find a solution that is efficient, medically accurate and HIPAA-compliant,” Hole says. Current offerings may also violate Title IX, a piece of legislation that entitles everyone to equitable access to health care regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability or language.
Root Medical Translation has been gaining momentum within the UT Austin startup ecosystem. It participated in Student Entrepreneur Acceleration & Launch (SEAL) this past summer, where the startup pitched onstage at Capital Factory during the culminating Decision Day. SEAL is UT Austin’s selective summer accelerator offered by the LaunchPad at UT Austin. The program picks the most promising emerging startups across campus and helps them confront their next market-driven milestone.
Clay Holberg pitches for Root Medical Translations on the Capital Factory stage during SEAL Decision Day.
Root spent this past fall prototyping its solution after joining Texas Convergent, a product-centric incubator for students by students. Convergent pairs pods of engineering, design and business students with UT student startups to give them real-world experience in tackling the needs of early stage ventures. With the help of Convergent, the team was able to build a working framework that brings its vision to life. Upon completion of the program, the founders were invited back for a second term, and they plan to finish out the product in the spring and roll out completed software. The Root Medical team also made it to the final round of the Texas Venture Lab Investment Competition in the spring of 2021, where they took home the Texas Rising Star Award and the E. Craig Nemec Elevator Challenge Award, as well as the ScaleHealth Innovation Award for health care. “We really took the feedback we received from TVLIC to heart, especially from professionals in the medical industry,” Hole says.
“Dr. Hole continuously ingrained into our team that doctors need this service to be reviewed by other doctors. It’s a tall order to build that network, but it’s what needs to happen to make our service truly unique from current market offerings,” Holberg says.
Root is currently searching for bilingual providers from all medical fields who are interested in being part of the peer-reviewed network, as well as for translation stories from medical providers and patients who have experienced similar challenges. “Understanding begins when we learn from misunderstandings. I hope to see a movement amongst providers on an international scale to help solve the problem and build this peer-to-peer network,” Hole says.
If you’re a bilingual provider interested in getting involved, or have a translation story to share, email drjenhole@roottranslator.com to connect and learn more.
The Portuguese words for comorbidity, (as)synchronous, obscurantism and omicron are among the 24 most searched words in the Priberam online dictionary in 2021, it was announced today.
“Among the 24 words that defined 2021, there remain many that refer, directly or indirectly, to the Covid-19 pandemic, such as (as)synchronous, comorbidity, obscurantism and, of course, omicron,” reads a joint statement from Priberam and Lusa, which teamed up for the fifth consecutive year to select the most searched words in the dictionary, and which illustrate the year that is ending.
The 24 words, selected among 200, which “due to the high number of daily searches, will be highlighted in the Priberam Dictionary cloud throughout 2021”, will be available as of today on the website https://ift.tt/3F0Ck71, which also includes news content from Lusa, to put each of the words into context, illustrating them with photographs taken by its photojournalists.
This year, “from the list of words that, at some point, were highlighted in the Priberam Dictionary cloud, the most searched was ‘genocida’ (genocide), motivated by protests against the Brazilian president” Jair Bolsonaro.
The ‘site’ is structured in chronological order, from January to December. Each word allows direct access to its meaning in the Priberam Dictionary and Lusa’s article on the event that motivated the searches.
Rieden in front of Odawara Castle in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Family photo
Family photo
Sometimes you feel like a stranger in the place where you're from. But what if you were to visit a foreign country and realize you fit in so much better there?
In this episode, we tell two stories of people finding a home far away from home. Cathy, an Irish journalist, travels for the first time to South Korea with her son and finds an unexpected sense of belonging there. A 6-year-old American boy named Rieden moves with his family to Japan and feels at home there for the first time. But the more Japanese he tries to become, the more his American mom struggles to figure out her new role in his life. And to help him truly belong, she has to become a new kind of parent.
Two years after first meeting Rieden and his mom Nicole, we check back in with them to hear about the lasting impact that Japan had on them, and what happens when the family doesn't feel welcome in the U.S.
Jess Jiang and Autumn Barnes contributed reporting for our original broadcast of this story in 2019.
Send us an email at roughtranslation@npr.org.
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