It has been selected as a result of an open call by the IEC and the Neology Observatory at the Pompeu Fabra University, and it will be nominated to be part of the Catalan normative dictionary.
In line with the initiatives undertaken by publishers such as Chambers, Oxford or Merriam-Webster’s for English, or Fundéu* for Spanish, the Neology Observatory at the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC) announced a call in December to participate in choosing the 2014 new Catalan word. In total, more than two hundred proposals were received, from the entire Catalan linguistic domain: Catalonia, the region of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Roussillon, Alghero and Andorra.
The most popular neologism, put forward by thirty-six people, was the noun estelada, which describes the flag that symbolises the independence of Catalonia. The Diccionari de la llengua catalana includes this noun with the definition: ‘group of stars in the sky’ and also the adjective estelat –ada with the meaning ‘full of stars’ or ‘decorated with one star or more’, from which the estelada flag comes, and due to conversion, the adjective becomes a noun.
* Fundación Español Urgente© INSTITUT DE LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA - UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA