Refugee voted Slovenian word of the year
Ljubljana, 10 January - Refugee (begunec in Slovenian) has been voted the word of the year in a poll to find the word which defined 2016 in Slovenia.
Serbia.
Refugees on the path to the Serbian-Croation border.
Photo: Tanjug/STA
File photo
Ten words were shortlisted from over a hundred nominations received by the Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Over 1,100 people voted in the online poll, with refugee beating wire and prekarec, the Slovenian expression for person in precarious employment.
Other short-listed words included Trumpism, uberisation, stakeholder, family, and health, the Fran Ramovš Institute said on Tuesday.
Jure Gombač from the Research Centre's Slovenian Migration Institute said the choice of refugee inspired hope that fundamental values such as humane conduct, respect for human rights, and solidarity still played an important role in our society.
He added that these values were a loud rejection of concepts such as walls, razor-wire fences, fear and hatred, which must not become part of our reality.