The term ended up in the spotlight as MPs in Kiev are reviewing controversial measures to call up more soldiers to fight Russia
The word ‘mobilization’ has been declared the word of the year amid Kiev’s attempts to replenish battlefield losses and its plans to call up an additional 500,000 conscripts, according to a Ukrainian web dictionary MySlovo.
In a post published on Friday, the lexicon said that the choice hinged on the word being “at the center of public debate” fueled by a “controversial mobilization bill” submitted to the parliament in late December.
The legislation in question proposes lowering the mobilization age from 27 to 25, eliminating exemptions for some categories of disabled people as well as introducing harsher measures against draft dodgers.
MySlovo also noted that ‘mobilization’ had taken the lead over the word ‘counteroffensive’ – a reference to Kiev’s much-hyped push that started in early summer but failed to gain substantial ground. The authors of the post also pointed out that the latter word “unfortunately received far more media support than logistics and, as a result, brought more frustration than visible results.”
Another counteroffensive-related collocation on the list was ‘Summer in Crimea,’ an allusion to comments by Kirill Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The official promised on several occasions that Kiev would seize the Russian peninsula, but it did not come to pass.
Other notable mentions also harked back in one way or another to the ongoing hostilities, including ‘draft dodger,’ ‘positional war,’ and ‘drone.’ A collocation, ‘eggs for 17 hryvnias ($0.45) each,’ also made it to the list, an apparent reference to a corruption scandal in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, which allegedly procured various foodstuffs at exorbitant prices.
The word ‘blockade’ also proved to be quite popular both in the context of Russia’s naval operations on the Black Sea and Polish haulers and farmers’ protests on the border between the two states. The latter have opposed EU regulations they felt gave unfair advantages to their Ukrainian counterparts.
The only word not directly associated with the conflict was ‘AI’ (artificial intelligence), although the dictionary suggested that its presence was “related to the integration of AI into military systems.”
Ukraine announced mobilization in February 2022 shortly after the start of the conflict with Russia, with the recruitment drive marred by corruption and draft dodging. However, during its counteroffensive, Kiev started actively mulling new measures to call up more soldiers in mid-2023. According to Moscow, Ukraine has lost around 160,000 troops since the start of the botched push in early June.
Researchers say ‘neural network’ has dominated search engine queries and gained prominence in the press and on social media
The Russian Language Pushkin Institute has ruled ‘neutral network’ as its word of 2023 after analyzing search engine data, media reports, and social media trends. The researchers said artificial intelligence has stepped out of tech communities and captured the broader public’s attention.
Some words appearing on the shortlist were also tech-related and included the likes of ‘ChatGPT’ and ‘artificial intelligence.’ Also appearing were ‘educator’ and ‘volunteer.’
Last year, the institute chose ‘legacy’ as the word of the year after 2022 was declared the ‘Year of the Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of Russia.’
In 2023, the increased interest in technology has been reflected in the fields of education, art, business, and law. They noted that practically anyone can now become acquainted with various artificial neural networks.
The term neural network is inspired by the human brain and how our biological neurons send signals to each other. In the tech realm, an artificial neural network is a complex learning and processing system that does the same thing.
The institute said its selection process was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, they compiled a list of ‘candidate’ words; in the second, they used analytics tools, including Wordstat, Google Trends, and Medialogiya, to assess the frequency of their use.
According to the data, the phrase ‘neural networks’ has been searched four million times in the past month alone. A spike was registered in late 2022 when the ChatGPT bot became publicly available. The researchers said the spike leveled off in February 2022, but searches have remained consistently high ever since.
Russia’s Medialogiya media-monitoring system has recorded more than 100,000 mentions of the word in social media posts and press publications since the start of the year, representing a tripling of its use over that period.
Late last month, Merriam-Webster, the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States, chose ‘authentic’ as the English word of the year. It explained that with the advent of artificial intelligence, the spread of ‘deepfake’ technology, and disinformation, people have increasingly searched for ‘real’ content.
The year 2023 sparked a kind of “crisis on authenticity,” Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, Peter Sokolowski, told the Associated Press, saying that when it is questioned, people “value it even more.”
