‘Finna’ & ‘Chile’ & ‘Structural Racism’ Among Words Added To The U.S. Dictionary

‘Finna’ & ‘Chile’ & ‘Structural Racism’ Among Words Added To The U.S. Dictionary

A few African-American Vernacular English words and phrases have recently been added to the American dictionary. African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Black Vernacular is a form of the English language that is natively spoken by African-American communities across the nation. A lot of AAVE terms and phrases are now heavily used within pop culture around the globe on a daily basis.

Recently Dictionary.com has had some new words added to its site, including AAVE terms such as “finna” and “chile.”

The website defines “finna” as

“A phonetic spelling representing the African American Vernacular English variant of fixing to, a phrase commonly used in Southern U.S. dialects to mark the immediate future while indicating preparation or planning already in progress.”

While the popular term “chile” is defined as,

“A phonetic spelling of child, representing dialectal speech of the Southern United States or African American Vernacular English.”

Some other new words that have been added to the site are,

AAL:

An acronym for African American Language.

BIPOC:

An acronym for Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

Structural racism:

Also called institutional racism or systemic racism, this refers to a policy or system of government that is rooted in racism, the website says.

Overall Dictionary.com added 450 brand-new entries, 7,600 updated entries, and 94 new definitions on existing entries.

In a recent statement the editor at Dictionary.com, John Kelly, shared the importance of updating the English language to be more inclusive as times change and evolve.

“We have added such terms as BIPOC, Critical Race Theory, and overpolice, which have risen to the top of the national discourse on social justice. Another significant decision was to remove the noun slave when referring to people, instead using the adjective enslaved or referring to the institution of slavery. This is part of our ongoing efforts to ensure we represent people on Dictionary.com with due dignity and humanity.”

What are your thoughts on these words being adding to the dictionary? Let us know below.