The new, fourth in a row competition “The Best New Serbian Word” will be held this year as well, under the sponsorship of our portal Serbian Times.
The competition for “The Best New Serbian Word 2026” opens today, and it will run until September 30 under the slogan “I have no words!” The organizers invite everyone who wants to participate in the fourth competition to join the “battle” for the best new Serbian word of 2026 and submit proposals to the e-mail: novarec@malabiblioteka.net.
However, that slogan also has a small addition – “But I still want to say!”
On the eve of the start of the new competition, the organizers say that, stubborn or persistent, in previous years they generated great public interest with this competition. They also emphasize that they received more than 500 proposals per year for the best new word. Thereby they achieved their goal – to encourage people to think and have a public conversation about the Serbian language.
They also remind that, inspired by all those wonderful people who care about their language and culture, last year they also published the book “Choose your words!” – an illustrated edition of selected proposals from the 2023 and 2024 competitions, but also a diary of the entire venture and the public’s response to it.
And while the word “Duhoklonuće” triumphed in the first competition, last year it was “Bezrečica”. That state of great excitement when something completely unexpected happens, beautiful or ugly, so we cannot find the right words was “coined” by Slavica Rakčević, a retiree from Belgrade.
A curiosity of the competitions so far is that for the past three years the winners were females, although a large number of proposals also came from the male world.
What is “mislišarenje”?
This competitive-linguistic project is joyful, cheerful, insightful, and exploratory, the organizers point out, adding that it shows that there is patience, will, and a desire to conduct a fine, cheerful, and smart conversation. Maybe that is why the term “mislišarenje” is accurate – the thinking of our joined heads, i.e. the “brainstorming” of a collective “supercomputer”, as observed by one of the competition’s editors.
And before the start of another adventure, art editor Igor Petrović underlines that the competition is primarily a game, and that for them, who participate in its organization, it has opened a special space of inspiration, serenity, and wit.
– For me, the joke at our expense was particularly funny, in the second year of the competition, when we had a “hole in a flowerpot” as a visual solution. In that way, we had fun looking back at the objections that we were doing exactly that – “inventing the unnecessary”. Nevertheless, we continue to play – Petrović says, while Miloš Dubroja, IT editor, notes that we often take language for granted:
– The “New Serbian Word” competition is an excellent opportunity to pause and think about the language we use every day. The most interesting thing was to observe how this format triggers a discussion about the meanings and forms of words, even among those who resent the very idea of creating new words. It surprised me how much interest children showed in studying words because of the competition. It stimulated their creativity, which is perhaps the greatest success of this initiative – the fact that the youngest got sincerely interested in this subject matter.
The sponsors of this year’s competition are the “S ljubavlju” venture and the media outlet of the Serbian diaspora from Chicago “Serbian Times“.
The organizers invite all those who want to participate in the fourth competition to join the “battle” for the best new Serbian word of 2026 and submit proposals to the mail novarec@malabiblioteka.net.
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Source: Nova Photo: Najbolja srpska reč, Nova