10,000 IT terms, trendy words to be added to Kojien dictionary

Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 06:48 EDT

TOKYO — Around 10,000 entries, including information technology terms and trendy words, will be added to the next version of the prestigious "Kojien" Japanese dictionary, Iwanami Shoten Publishers said Tuesday.

The terms to be added include Japanese words for whistle-blowing, the Iraq war and NEET (not in education, employment or training), as well as youth slang such as "love-love" (mutually in love), "uzai" (annoying) and "gyakugire" (becoming offensive instead of reflecting).

With the additions, the total number of entries in the sixth edition of the Kojien, or Comprehensive Dictionary of the Japanese Language, will come to around 240,000. The edition will be published Jan 11.

The publishing house examined about 100,000 words collected from the Internet and media reports since the fifth edition was published in 1998 and selected around 10,000 words after judging they had become popular.

The new entries also include words about the environment, finance and the economy.
"The changes in the roughly 10 years since the revisions to the fifth edition correspond to 100 years in the past. The progress in scientific technology and informatization are reflected in the language," Iwanami President Akio Yamaguchi said.

The publisher chose not to include trendy words such as "Ina Bauer," "cool biz" and "moe" (cute) after concluding that their use will be short-lived or not very popular.
Referred to as "the standard of the Japanese language," the Kojien was first published in 1955, according to the Iwanami website.