site.btaUPDATED Bulgarian Words of the Year for 2022

The words that defined last year for Bulgarians were war, inflation, elections, and Ukraine, according to the large-scale survey conducted by the literacy platform kaksepishe.com (Kak se pishe? means How is that spelled? in Bulgarian). The other words that made it in top ten are gas, volunteers, marginal interest, refugees, paper coalition, and Ruscists, the organizers said.

In the campaign, which took place for the second year in a row, people had the opportunity to vote for the most significant words and expressions for Bulgaria in 2022.

For the first time, the survey included a new component - a ranking of the most used words and expressions by the Bulgarian media. The analysis, based on 11.3 million publications in 7,993 online news sources, shows that the 10 most frequent words last year were Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, war, Europe, USA, politics, minister, price, child. The top 20 also included gas, energy, governance, and economy.

According to the organizers from Kaksepishe, Pavlina Varbanova and Doroteia Nikolova, it is crucial for the Bulgarian public to be "aware of the processes that define our lives, our role in them, and the imprint they leave deep within us". The organizers note that, overall, the chosen words are bitter and negative. Still, there is a ray of hope in volunteers, which the respondents ranked sixth, even though the media did not use as frequently.

Vesselina Sedlarska, member of the Kaksepishe jury, said, "If words measured the emotional temperature of a community, then the Bulgarians have long crossed the red line, after which starts the danger zone, and we are heading for new records in the heating up of the situation. There is not even a trace of the wit, which used to always save us in hard times."

Assoc. Prof. Georgi Lozanov, another member of the jury, believes that the words of the year are the most effective way to examine the state of mind. "They also point us to the exemplars of contemporary verbal folklore - the new words that people and the media invent, or the new meanings they give to familiar words," the expert added.

War topped the list with 51%, followed by inflation with 40%, and elections and Ukraine both with 29%.

For comparison, the 2021 words of the year were:

• To make up my mind. The original word in Bulgarian gained popularity after the anti-vax slogan, "Everybody should be allowed to make up their own mind." A curious detail is the fact that the original word in the Bulgarian slogan is grammatically incorrect.
• Antivaxxer
• To scrape off. In Bulgarian to scrape off is a slang term that Slavi Trifonov, founder of the There Is Such a People political party, used to describe what should be done with the legacy of the formerly ruling GERB party.