The words “time,” “person,” “new,” “life,” and “home” have become the most frequently mentioned in Russian literature since December 2025. This was reported to TASS by the press service of the “Lingva” imprint, based on an analysis of more than 6,500 new books.
According to a study conducted as part of the “Word of the Year – 2026” project, the word “time” was used in texts nearly 100,000 times, which set an absolute record for the sample, with a two‑fold lead over the second‑place word. In total, the top 30 most popular concepts are mentioned in books more than 681,000 times. The list of leaders also includes such words as “word”, “question”, “place”, “big”, and “work”.
The ranking analysis revealed several key thematic trends. In addition to reflecting on the historicity of the current moment (“time”, “moment”, “period”, “history”), literature also shows attention to humanistic values (the words “human” and “child” are mentioned over 155,000 times), as well as a search for adaptation mechanisms (“question”, “solution”, “opportunity”, “process”, “system”). “The modern hero tries to perceive reality as a structure that can be analyzed: he focuses on finding “solutions” to complex “questions” and discovers useful “opportunities” for working within institutional “systems,” the study’s authors noted.
The “Word of the Year” project was launched by the “Lingva” imprint, the “Mir i Obrazovanie” publishing house, and the philological project “Skvortsov Readings” in 2024. In previous seasons, the main word was “Mir” (2024) and “Anxiety” (2025). The solemn ceremony to announce the federal winner of “Word of the Year – 2026” will take place in December.
Information source “TASS”: https://tass.ru/kultura/28301361
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