Aadhaar Chosen As Oxford Dictionary’s Hindi Word of 2017

Widespread discussions on ‘Aadhaar’ made it the word of the year, beating ‘Mitron’ and ‘Notebandi.’

Aadhaar is back in news, again!

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Oxford Dictionaries has chosen ‘Aadhaar’ as the Hindi word of 2017. The word gained popularity due to the Aadhaar card, which was in news last year and is likely to remain in highlight this year as well. The announcement was made at a session “Oxford Dictionaries’ Hindi Word of the Year” during the ongoing literature festival in Jaipur.

Other words such as ‘Mitron’, ‘Notebandi’ and ‘Gau-Rakshak’ were also considered, but the widespread discussions and debates around ‘Aadhaar’ was the reason it was selected as the word of the year, journalist Saurabh Dwivedi said during the discussion.

Writer Pankaj Dubey said new words like ‘Sleepawastha’ (state of sleeping), ‘Maukatarian’ (opportunist) should be coined to express certain moods. Chitra Mudgal objected to the suggestion and instead advocated for correct use of languages.

If a person with lack of proper knowledge coins and expresses such words then it can be understood, but this is not acceptable when educated people do this.

Chitra Mudgal, author

Poet and writer Ashok Vajpeyi said politicians use Hindi word ‘Mitron’ (friends) which is not grammatically correct, when in fact the correct word is ‘Mitro’ – an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who uses the term often in his speeches.

Vajpeyi said the responsibility to conserve language lies with people.

“Changes would come, new words would be coined but ultimately the responsibility to conserve the language is on citizens,” he said.

Talking about the languages used by media, journalist Vinod Dua said that media's job is to provide news in a simple language for audience, instead of creating a literature while broadcasting the news.