MULTIPLE organizations in China released the most popular Chinese characters and phrases of 2024 last week, offering insight into the evolving trends of the country and the world.

On the list of 2024 buzzwords for China, the character “zhi,” or “intelligence” in English, and the term “new quality productive forces” claimed the top spots for their respective categories.

Also featured are characters related to integration, safety, and stability, along with expressions like “Black Myth: Wukong,” the internationally acclaimed Chinese video game, and “smell of work,” a social media term that describes a state of fatigue, mental exhaustion, and loss of interest in life resulting from long working hours.

For global buzzwords, the list included “election,” “war,” “change,” “Paris Olympics,” “Global South,” “Artificial Intelligence,” and “Large Language Model.”

The lists were compiled using an algorithm that analyzed a corpus of Chinese characters along with public recommendations, with final results confirmed by experts and researchers.

Having been held for 19 consecutive years, this annual event is jointly organized by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center, the Commercial Press, and other institutions.

Elsewhere, the Oxford Dictionary chose “brain rot” as its word of the year. After over 37,000 votes and an analysis of their language data, Oxford decided that “brain rot” gained prominence this year, capturing concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. This term refers to the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, as a result of overconsumption of trivial, unchallenging material.

For 2024, Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is “polarization,” a reflection of people’s concern about our divisive world. Dictionary.com chose “demure,” used to describe “refined and sophisticated appearance or behavior.” Cambridge’s winner is the verb “manifest.” And Collins Dictionaries selected “brat,” used in the new sense of “a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude,” instead of “an unwanted or unplanned child.” (SD-Xinhua)