FEATURED NEOLOGISM:

Even though the Covid pandemic was a challenging period for all of us, and many of us are trying to forget it ever happened, it is linguistically quite inspirational. Therefore, I would like to choose my favorite COVID-related neologisms. Although I have many favorites, I find the different names for masks fascinating and sometimes funny. For example, the word Kinnwindel, which consists of the words Kinn (Eng. chin) and Windel (Eng. diaper), was used to refer to the protection for the mouth and nose worn improperly under the mouth. With this term, the speaker expresses his displeasure and aversion to masks. Although we no longer wear masks and the word is not widely used, it is interesting to see how creative people were and what images and associations they had when creating new words. https://www.owid.de/docs/neo/listen/corona.jsp#kinnwindel

I am a PhD student of Linguistics at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. Besides the Bachelor’s and Master’s studies of German language at the same faculty, with a focus on Linguistics, the most significant impact on my research journey were the internships at the Institute for German Language in Mannheim (IDS). The result of the first internship was my Master’s thesis on German COVID-19-related neologisms. As a part of my PhD studies, I wrote papers on COVID-related neologisms and word formation, COVID-related neologisms and syntax, and COVID-related neologisms and conceptual metaphor. My primary areas of interest are lexicology, lexicography, lexical semantics, neologisms, multi-word expressions, Construction grammar, contrastive analysis of the German and Serbian languages, and corpus linguistics.