Chinese dominates OED’s updateHugo Tseng 曾泰元This month, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) released its first quarterly update of the year, adding more than 500 new words while revising nearly 1,000 existing entries. When the update dropped, the “Overview” confirmed new additions from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Ireland. Cantonese dominates in Hong Kong, while Hokkien has left deep imprints across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Its structure highlights the influence of Chinese grammatical reduplication, with features typical of Chinese Pidgin English. Significantly, all eight words come from Chinese dialects in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia — none from Standard Chinese as spoken in Taiwan or China.

Source: Taipei Times March 28, 2026 18:29 UTC