FEATURED NEOLOGISM:

One of my favorite neologisms is wasapear, from Spanish. It comes from the brand name WhatsApp, adapted into the Spanish phonetic system as wasap (reflecting how speakers pronounce it). The verb-forming suffix -ear is then added, a highly productive pattern in Spanish for creating new verbs from foreign words or technological terms. “Wasapear” means “to send messages via WhatsApp.” It started circulating informally in Spain and Latin America around the early 2010s, shortly after the app gained massive popularity. The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) eventually acknowledged “wasap” and “wasapear” in its online dictionary, showing how quickly digital communication has influenced language. I find it fascinating because it illustrates how Spanish adapts global technology into its own morphology, balancing foreign influence with native grammatical creativity.

Silvia Martínez Martínez holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting (2007) and a PhD in Translation and Interpreting (2015) from the University of Granada. She is currently Lecturer in the Department of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Granada. She is a member of the research group HUM-1131, Multimodality, Generative AI, Philology, Literature, Interpreting, and Translation (MAIFILIT) at the University of Granada (Spain). Her research interests include accessible audiovisual translation, audio description for people with hearing disabilities, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing, and film sound.