“Coronavirus”, “mask”, “quarantine”, “remote”, “elections” or “cougar” are just some of the proposals that have a chance to become the Word of the Year 2020. Until December 31, everyone can submit their own ideas or choose from words and phrases prepared by the organizers of the online poll. This year, participants can also vote for the Word of the Decade.

The competition is organized by the Institute of Polish Language of the University of Warsaw (UW) and the Polish Language Foundation as part of the National Cultural Center program “Homeland – Add to Favorites”.

The competition for the most important word of the last 12 months consists of an internet poll and a vote by the linguists’ jury. In the online poll, everybody can vote in two ways – by selecting a word or phrase from the list provided by the organizers and by submitting their own proposal.

The catalog of words is created on the basis of key words from Polish daily newspapers, which are published on the websites slowanaczasie.uw.edu.pl and slowadnia.clarin-pl.eu.