Columnist’s note: This column begins a three-part series drawn from a keynote lecture, “Meaning on the Move: Migration, Lexicon and the Oxford English Dictionary,” which I delivered at the Intercultural Semantics conference at Aarhus University from Aug. 19 to 21, 2026, organized by Professors Susana Fernández and Carsten Levisen. Parts 2 and 3 will follow in the coming weeks.