‘Justice’, word of the year ng Merriam-Webster

RACIAL justice. Obstruction of justice. Social justice. The Justice Department. Pinili ng Merriam-Webster ang salitang “justice” bilang word of the year nito, dahil sa sunud-sunod na pagtingin o paghanap sa naturang salita sa kanilang website, sa mga nakalipas na buwan. Kasunod nito ang salitang “toxic,” na pinili naman ng Oxford Dictionaries, at “misinformation” naman mula sa Dictonary. com.

Inanunsiyo ni Peter Sokolowski, editor ng Merriam-Webster, sa The Associated Press nitong Lunes na ang salitang “justice” ang nakakuha ng pinakaraming search sa top 20 o 30 lookup website ng kumpanya, lalo na sa kapag may nagaganap na mga pangyayaring pinag-uusapan ng publiko.

Nitong Dec. 12, 2018, ang larawan ng “justice” ay naka-display sa Merriam-Webster dictionary sa New York.

“These are stories that connect to the culture and to society across races, across classes,” sabi ni Peter. “We get this word that filters in.”

Kabilang din sa bilang na ito ang paulit-ulit na pagbanggit sa salitang justice sa Twitter.

Tumaas ang searches ng “justice” ng 74 percent ngayong taon kumpara noong 2017, sa site na mayroong mahigit 100 million page views sa isang buwan at halos umabot ito sa kalahating milyong entries, sabi ni Peter.

“We are not editorializing. We looked at our data and we were ourselves surprised by this word,” ani Peter. “This is a word that people have been thinking about for this entire year.”

Ang salitang “justice” ay mula sa salitang Latin, at hindi ito kagaya ng mas emosyonal na mga salita na umusbong sa Old English. Sa Old English ay mayroong “law,” ”fair” at “right,” ngunit

walang “justice,” na patungkol sa sistema ng laws.

“It’s not a coincidence that it comes from the 12th century, which immediately follows the Norman conquest. When the Normans invaded England they brought their language, Old French, which was basically the then-modern version of Latin. They brought their system of government and laws and imposed them on the people they conquered, and that’s why all of the legal language in English today is Latin, just like the word justice,” paliwanag niya. “It took the imposition of a system of laws to bring us the word justice.”