‘Selfi’ – Spanish word of 2014

THE Spanish word of the year for 2014 has been chosen, and it is the Spanish version of the English word of the year from 2013.

‘Selfi’ – or ‘selfie’ in English – has been named by the Fundeu BBVA language foundation as the word of the year in Spain thanks to the explosion in the craze of people taking photographs of themselves and posting them on social media sites.

In 2013, ‘selfie’ was chosen by Oxford Dictionaries word of the year, and the Anglican version of the word has become more popular than the other Spanish versions meaning the same thing: ‘autofoto’ and ‘autoretrato’.

“We aren’t looking for the most beautiful word, or even the most original or novel,” explained Fundeu BBVA director Joaquin Muller. “What we want with our word of the year – apart from being current and therefore used frequently in the media – is that (the word) has a certain linguistic interest, whether it’s because of its formation or because of the way it has become part of everyday language.”

Other Spanish words up for consideration included ‘dron’ (drone), ‘nomofobia’ (fear of being without a mobile phone) and ‘amigovio’ (a long-term partner to whom one is not officially engaged).