English online resource platform Dictionary.com has added new terms related to the Philippines in its latest update, which features 650 new entries and revisions on thousands of others.
Five new terms related to the country have been added to the dictionary: Filipinx, Pinxy, Filipina, Pinoy and Pinay.
They join other Philippine-related terms previously added in the online resource, such as Filipino, Pilipino and Tagalog.
Filipinx, pronounced as filipineks or filipinks, is a gender-neutral term that can be used either as a noun or an adjective “in place of the masculine form Filipino or the feminine form Filipina.”
Pinxy, pronounced as pinksee, is the informal version “used in place of the masculine form Pinoy or the feminine form Pinay.”
According to Dictionary.com, the historical usage of Filipinx and Pinxy is related to that of Latinx, a gender-neutral term to refer to “people of Latin American origin or descent, especially those living in the United States.”
In the entry for Latinx, it was explained that the character x has been used to replace the gendered inflections -o and –a.
“The spellings Latinx or Chicanx are particularly embraced by groups that wish to include members whose gender identities are nonbinary,” the entry read.
“By respecting the gendered grammar of Spanish in our English use of these loanwords, biological sex and binary gender identity are imposed onto English discourse in ways that otherwise would not have occurred,” it added.
Meanwhile, Pinay and Filipina were defined as something relating to female natives or inhabitants of the Philippines.
Pinoy – like the word Filipino – did not include a gender reference in its definition, indicating that it may be used as a gender-neutral term.
The new Philippine-related words were among the new or updated entries connected to ethnicity, which also included brownface, whitesplain and capitalization of the term Black in reference to people.
“Many of these updates – 650 of them, as noted – are of the sort that usually win attention: the new words that define the culture, technology, and environment of our times,” the online dictionary said in a statement on Tuesday, Sept. 1.
“But just as important as the new words we’ve added are the deeper revisions that document what drives us here at Dictionary.com: the ways language is constantly evolving. A great many of these entries we’ve updated address topics that touch all of us on the most personal levels: race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, health and wellness,” it explained. (One News)
