New words that might be more often seen on social media than in textbooks have been included in the Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language of the Language Center (KBBI).

An Instagram account concerning the Indonesian language, @membetulkan, posted on Tuesday that a number of slang words had been included into the Great Dictionary.

The slang words quoted in the post include alay (overacting), cihui (an exclamation that shows happiness), gebetan (crush), kepo (nosy), kicep (silence due to fear or worry), lebay (excessive) and nyokap (mother).

Other words added to the Great Dictionary include internet-related words such as meme, vlog and saltik (typo).

The KBBI is the official dictionary of the Indonesian language. The dictionary is produced and renewed periodically by the Language Center of the Education and Culture Ministry.

The dictionary’s first edition, which contained 62,000 words, was first published in 1988.

The current edition is the fifth edition of the dictionary, published in 2016 and contains 127,036 words.

The KBBI has been criticized for being too selective, often excluding words that are in common use, making the slang entries a departure from its conventional image. (gis)