iPaulina

It’s no accident that the internationally recognised term for this disease is an Anglicism. It was chosen in February 2020 by the World Health Organisation, which, despite having six working languages, primarily uses only English in its public communications. The WHO’s policy for naming pathologies prohibits references to individuals, occupations, and places, to avoid creating prejudice by way of association. Using a Chinese-sounding word would most definitely be counterproductive to this goal (as is the use of the ‘kung flu’).

The pandemic has shone a light on this Anglocentrism. In January 2020, criticism was directed at Chinese epidemiologists who published their early findings related to the then-unnamed Coronavirus in more ‘prestigious’ English-language journals, rather than making them available in Mandarin at a time when the virus was still heavily concentrated in China. The British Academy has reported that a severe lack of foreign-language skills among English-speaking government officials, researchers, and healthcare workers has become especially evident throughout the crisis, hindering the transmission of accurate information between frontline workers.