By Larbi Arbaoui
Morocco World News
Tinejdad, July 28, 2013
According to Newsy TV channel, Oxford English Dictionary, the world's most renowned dictionary of the English language, is to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.
Currently, OxfordDictionaries.com defined the term "marriage" as a "formal union of a man and a woman, typically as recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife."
However, it says marriage could also be ‘(in some jurisdictions) a union between partners of the same sex’, a reference that gay rights activists have long regarded as discriminatory.
According to Gay Star News, an Oxford University Press spokeswoman said: “We continually monitor the words in our dictionaries, paying particular attention to those words whose usage is shifting, so yes, this will happen with marriage.”
It is worth to point out that Le Petit Larousse, a French-language encyclopedic dictionary published by Éditions Larousse, modified the definition of marriage in its 2014 edition (published June 2013), to take into account the same sex couples before law changed in France.
The 2014 edition of the French dictionary Larousse defines marriage as “solemn act by which two persons of different sex or same sex establish between themselves a union.”
Same-sex unions are currently legal in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, England and Wales.