Youth Language of the Year: I bims

The independent 20-person jury, which is newly assembled each year and is made up of young people, media representatives and a linguist, did not make it easy for themselves: There was lively discussion and analysis - until the panel decided that "I bims" was the winning word. This neologism means "I am" or "It's me".

Juror Markus Kunzmann, a doctoral candidate in German linguistics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, explains his decision as follows: “‘I bims’ is the clear winner for me because this phrase occurs very frequently in spoken language and even more so in written language.”

Mathilde Mahrenholtz, the 17-year-old editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, sums it up: "My friends and I use 'I bims' very often. In my opinion, it best represents the youth language of 2017."

The vote remained exciting until the last minutes of the second round. Here the jurors had to choose the final winning word from the top 5. The top 5 also included "napflixen" (taking a nap while watching a film), "noicemail" (annoying voice message), "schatzlos" (single) and "unlügbar" (definite, undisputed).

For the tenth time, Langenscheidt Verlag called for the election of the youth word of the year. Between the beginning of October and mid-November 2017, anyone interested in languages ​​had six weeks to vote for the top 30.

The publisher has counted over a million votes this year. The criteria for the top 30 are originality, creativity, distribution, and cultural, social and future relevance.

Graphic: PR Agent