Dutch language gets thousands of official new words
Thousands of new words will be included in the new edition of the Groene Boekje – the “Little Green Boek”- with the official list of Dutch words, which will be published on October 13, the Dutch newspaper Telegraaf published. New words such as “appen” (to use Whatsapp) and “selfie” will be added. We can handle that!
The Groene Boekje differs from an ordinary dictionary because it only contains the spelling of words, not definitions. Now, new words such as”appen” (to use Whatsapp) and “selfie” will be added to official existing words, the Telegraaf reports.
The current print edition dates from 2005 and contains 100,000 words. Despite the inclusion of new words, the 2015 edition of the book will be half the size of previous versions. Geographic words such as Den Bosch, Hongarije en Zwolle will disappear, as they create no spelling problems. ‘The new Groene Boekje will include words which people look for more often, spelling rules and the 5,000 most commonly used words.’ At the same time, the online version will be expanded to up to 180,000 words.
This year no changes are being planned in the official spelling rules. Changes to the rules for spelling compound words like pannenkoek (pancake) and paardenbloem (dandelion) caused a commotion when they were introduced in 1995 and 2005.
[Source: Telegraaf]