#metoo and harcèlement are the words of the year Switzerland 2017
#metoo and harcèlement—Switzerland’s Words of the Year for 2017 have been selected. Words like these reflect what moved us in 2017. To make their selection, ZHAW researchers used Switzerland’s largest text database—and the jury relied on their linguistic intuition.
In second and third place are wegglachen and Influencer for German and congé paternité and influenceur/influenceuse for French (see below). "These words are a particularly clear reflection of what moved us in 2017," says Daniel Perrin, who heads the Swiss Word of the Year project.
For the first time, the vote was multilingual, research-based and interactive. German words of the year have been chosen for Switzerland since 2003, with French being added for the first time this year, followed by Italian in 2018 and Romansh in 2019. For each language, there are three stages of voting:
First, researchers analyze the ZHAW text database Korpus Swiss-AL and determine the twenty words that were used more frequently in 2017 than in previous years. Then a jury of language professionals selects the three most prominent words from this list, from suggestions made by the public and based on their own experience. Finally, the researchers show how these words developed in language use in Switzerland in 2017 and what social changes they represent.
The jury for 2017 included linguists from German- and French-speaking Switzerland. The Department of Applied Linguistics at the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur is responsible for the database and project management.
