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Gelsys María García Lorenzo, a young Cuban professor at UCLA in the U.S., has published an intriguing book that compiles the words that the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) has incorporated without announcing as new additions in recent years.
García Lorenzo, born in Camagüey in 1988, and also a poet and researcher, has identified about 2,000 new words between 2014 and 2024, of which the RAE and ASALE (the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language) have only recognized 910 as new entries, highlights an EFE report.
Among the new terms that the RAE has not included in its annual list of updates, this meticulous resident of Camagüey has identified some such as faraona (2020), cocacola, or queer (2024).
These and many more can be found in The 2,000 New Words in Spanish (Oberon), the book published by this Cuban, who is also a doctor from the Complutense University of Madrid.
García Lorenzo explains that his method for locating words was based on contrasting the 91,111 entries from the 2014 printed dictionary, which was the last paper edition, with the subsequent digital versions using the "Start with..." tool from the Diccionario de la Lengua Española, which allows for the extraction of all words through queries that yield a maximum of 200 terms.
"Paraphrasing a well-known saying: maybe not all of them are present, but all of those who are present are here," García Lorenzo joked with EFE.
The Cuban has requested explanations on the matter from the RAE, which has merely referred her to the twenty-fourth edition of the dictionary, both in print and online, set to be released at the end of 2026.
García Lorenzo has not only been surprised or fascinated by the inclusion of words such as afrodescendiente, colacao, cuñadismo, demasié, discman, draculino, kiki or quiqui, largoplacismo and largoplacista, mangú, queer, transhumanidad, or voleibolista, but he has also found several examples of accentuation errors in the 2014 dictionary that were later corrected.
Of all her findings, this Cuban believes that the most fascinating is the term "faraona," added in 2020, whose omission seems to her "a notable oversight, at least from a cultural perspective --not philological."
The RAE dictionary now includes this term as: "pharaoh: each of the ancient kings of Egypt prior to the conquest of this country by the Persians."
García Lorenzo also points out that, in the case of Coca-Cola, another notable addition, the entry contains a typo, as the etymology mentions the registered trademark Coca-Cola, but without the hyphen that is part of its official spelling
"It is an 'obvious oversight,' García tells EFE."
According to the independent Cuban media Rialta Magazine, Gelsys María García Lorenzo holds a degree in Literature from the University of Havana and a PhD in Hispanic Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid.
He published the poetry notebooks Vesania (2005) and Anábasis (2007). In 2016 and 2017, he compiled the anthology La Revolución y sus perros y Anuncia Freud a María. Cartografía bíblica del teatro cubano (Bokeh).
Under the imprint of the Anaya publishing house in Spain, their manuals Illustrated Spelling. The Book to Improve Writing and 100 Spelling Secrets have come to light.
Frequently asked questions about the new words in the RAE dictionary and the work of Gelsys María García Lorenzo
What did Gelsys María García Lorenzo discover about the RAE dictionary?
Gelsys María García Lorenzo discovered that the RAE has incorporated around 2,000 new words without publicly announcing them as novelties. Through a detailed analysis, García Lorenzo identified these words by comparing the printed and digital versions of the dictionary.
What are some of the words that the RAE added without announcing?
Among the unannounced incorporated words are "faraona," "cocacola," and "queer." These words, along with others, were identified by García Lorenzo in his book "The 2,000 New Words in Spanish."
What method did García Lorenzo use to identify the new words in the dictionary?
García Lorenzo used the “Start with...” tool from the Dictionary of the Spanish Language to compare the words from the printed and digital editions. This method allowed him to extract and compare the words across different versions of the dictionary.
What mistakes did García Lorenzo find in the RAE dictionary?
García Lorenzo found errors in accentuation and a typo in the entry for "cocacola". He pointed out that the RAE mentioned the registered brand Coca-Cola without the hyphen that is part of its official spelling, which he described as an "evident oversight".
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