Practice of self-glueing as an eco-protest gets own entry in the German dictionary

‘Klimakleber’ is one of the 3,000 new words in the Duden, the German equivalent of the Oxford Dictionary

This summer, passengers in many German airports faced flight delays but it wasn’t due to the standard reasons of labour strikes by baggage handlers or badly planned operational schedules. It often had to do with eco-activists from the organization ‘Last Generation’ going onto the runway and glueing their hands to the tarmac, while shouting some anti-fossil fuel messages for social media.

That kind of unusual protest action on the part of the activists has also been used when the organization staged climate protests in museums and art galleries, during the winter, which was how it first attracted international attention.

However, the whole thing had already been tried by the campaigners on the streets of Berlin for years. So much so that this form of adhesive-loving protest, known in German as ‘Klimakleber’ (‘climate glue’), had become a household term. And if a new expression becomes part of the common parlance, shouldn’t it be included in the dictionary?

Well, that’s precisely what The Duden – Germany’s equivalent of the Oxford Dictionary – did.

Every era creates its own words

On Tuesday, 20 August, the Duden will be published in its new and updated 29^th edition. In addition to ‘Klimakleber’, the dictionary is adding some 3,000 new words that reflect the fluid nature of the language and the times we live in.

To illustrate what this means consider that among the other entries in the new Duden edition are "ChatGPT", "Deutschlandticket", “Blakonkraftwerk” ("balcony power plant") and “Ukrainekrieg” ("Ukraine war").

"The Duden is a mirror of its time. These words say something about what has happened in the last three to four years," said editor-in-chief Kathrin Kunkel-Razum to the German Press Agency (DPA).

The most comprehensive German language dictionary was first published in 1880 by Konrad Duden. The book, which consists of 12 volumes is considered the go-to reference source for all things that have to do with Standard High German – the official form of the language used in Germany.