Delightful new words

OMG so cute! This phrase kind of expresses the way you feel about someone or something you find simply adorable. It could be your little puppy looking at you with large liquid eyes after having chewed up your sock. It could be a baby gurgling with laughter at the silliest of things like when you rattle a tin box or play peek-a-boo. It could even be your grandma’s toothless grin when she cracks a naughty joke. Don’t you often wish there was some other, more expressive word that could describe exactly how you feel, you know, so overwhelmed with the cuteness you witness that you are left grappling for the right word of endearment?

The Oxford English Dictionary’s latest additions to the English language might be of help here. It has chosen to include the Tagalog word, gigil, for “overwhelmed by cuteness” –pronounced ghee-gil – that it has borrowed from the Philippines. Tagalog is the language spoken by the Tagalog people; the language is otherwise known as Filipino, the national language of the Philippines (in addition to English also being their national language). Even uttering the word ‘gigil’ does convey that cuteness quotient you are experiencing when you witness something oh-so-cute.

This year the OED has added 42 words from other languages to its kitty. The New York Times quotes Danica Slazar, executive editor of the OED: “For people who speak English alongside other languages, there is an easy way to fill such a lexical gap –simply borrowing the untranslatable word from another language.” These words, according to OED, were determined to have been “lexicalized” in one language but do not have a direct English equivalent. “They will join more than 600,000 words in the robust dictionary… Sometimes, they do this with enough frequency that the borrowed word eventually becomes part of the vocabulary of their variety of English,” says Slazar.

The English Language has enriched itself, getting updated by borrowing liberally from languages from across the world. Long years ago, the Tamil kattumaram became catamaran – the raft made of wooden slabs and poles held together by rope that fishermen use in Tamil Nadu – and thereby gave the word a global audience, also exposing people to the ways of fisherfolk in Tamil land. Then followed several other Tamil words –kayiru (rope made of coconut fibre) became coir, kai pidi (grab the hand) became kabaddi, gidangu or kitangu became godown, panthal became pandal, murungai became moringa, paraiyan (outcase) became paraiah, kari transformed to curry and so many more such Tamil words have become part and parcel of the English language worldwide.

Word play is so much more fun and learning-filled than mere emojis that certainly do express the emotion you feel but fall short of any character or historical, literary background or knowledge addition. Also, rampant use of emojis tend to take the shine off writing skills and spellings, leaving one a little wanting in the domain of words that express so much more than an emotion.