If you’ve taken the time to visit my Language Center section, dubbed The Linguist, on this blog, specifically the Daily Word, you’ll notice a commonality in the words I feature there.
(If you haven’t, yet, check it out now or you may not read past this. Kidding. As if I have the power to do that. :p But seriously, click the aforementioned link to visit the Daily Word page, or the one in the menu above – under The Linguist – to visit the ten most recent entries.)
When I first thought of putting up a Word of the Day column here, and when my mentor encouraged me to go for it, I had already decided that all the words would be related to our old friend, social responsibility. To provide some sort of commonality with my CSR Bookshelf, the aforementioned relations would be to what I call CB’s 9 Foci: business leadership, charity and philanthropy, CSR, ethical conduct, human value, shared value, social business, social enterprise, and volunteerism.
Pretty broad, you’d think. Especially if the “broad(sheet)” [digital and privately run] is a daily one-worder. Be that as it may. At least it gives us a lot of words to work with, and from many backgrounds do these words come from! It should provide quite a rich discussion on the terms familiar to those engaged in socio-personal development. After all, even amongst their many faults, the Community in The Giver got one thing right: the precision of language is important for things to “function smoothly”. Especially in something so crucial to the future of our society as social responsibility and development.
And, and I’ll be making excuses, it gives me a reason to slowly broaden my vocabulary in foreign languages. :p
But seriously: if we are to completely accept this thing that is our globalized world today, and move forward as one in the name of development, one way of doing so smoothly is to ensure that we all get what we are talking about and doing. Learners of foreign languages would find it useful as well if they take their skills to another place – especially in light of the 2015 ASEAN integration, a key development in my country. Even knowing just keywords should work wonders, as the context can be gotten quite easily even if one cannot say the entire sentence in another language.
As such, writing from a Filipino, ASEAN, and Asia-Pacific perspective, apart from the Oxford English Dictionary definitions and etymologies, I am also including translations of the Daily Words in the key ASEAN and East Asian languages, as well as key European languages. Most of my words are English terms with equivalents in other languages, though at times I will also get concepts or terms originating from other Asian cultures, and work from that perspective instead. The languages are as follows:
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- بهاس ملايو (Bahasa Melayu) (Malay)
- Cebuano
- Deutsch (German)
- English
- Español (Spanish)
- Filipino
- Français (French)
- 한국어 (Hangugeo) (Korean)
- Italiano (Italian)
- ភាសាខ្មែរ (Khmer/Cambodian)
- Latino (Latin)
- မြန်မာဘာသာ (Myanma Bhasa) (Burmese)
- 日本語 (にほんご Nihongo) (Japanese)
- ພາສາລາວ (phasa lao) (Lao/Laotian)
- ภาษาไทย (phasa thai) (Siamese/Thai)
- தமிழ் (Tamiḻ) (Tamil)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- 中文 (Zhōngwén) (Chinese)
Aloy Chua 