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Q: English language word count ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   3 Comments )
Question  
Subject: English language word count
Category: Reference, Education and News > General Reference
Asked by: bluebean-ga
List Price: $12.00
Posted: 11 Jul 2004 17:52 PDT
Expires: 10 Aug 2004 17:52 PDT
Question ID: 372851
I have some questions about language. 

How many words are added to the English language daily? How many words
does the English Language contain, (excluding scientific names of
things)?

After English, what language has the most words? (Excluding languages
like Finnish which can string words together to create a new word.)

How many does it have?

Thanks, 
Kate
Answer  
Subject: Re: English language word count
Answered By: pinkfreud-ga on 11 Jul 2004 20:00 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Estimates of the number of words added to the English language vary.
Depending on whose estimate one accepts, between 7 and 55 new words
enter the English language each day. The total number of non-technical
words in the English language is generally estimated at around
500,000. Most sources say that, after English, the language with the
next highest word count is German, which is estimated to have around
185,000 words.

Concerning new words added to the English language:

"It is estimated by Don Watson that there may be over 20,000 new words
added to the English Language every year; Mark Liberman puts that
figure closer to the OED annual production of 2500."

East Carolina University: The Common Reader
http://www.ecu.edu/english/tcr/22-5/editor.htm

"The English language contains over 615,000 words, with 5,000 new ones
coming into the lexicon every year. It is said that the mature,
educated English speaker can call on at least 50,000 words."

MHW Communications Newsletter: January 2002
http://www.mhwcom.com/pages2002/january2002.html

Some interesting figures:

"The English language is dynamic, constantly adding new words and
changing the meanings of others. Such words are called neologisms,
which Webster's dictionary defines as 'a new word, usage, or
expression.' According to some estimates, 90,000 new words were added
to the English language during the twentieth century, representing a
25% increase in the total number of words."

Riverdeep: Welcome to the ????s 
http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2000/01/front.100100.decade1.jhtml 

"Since 1966, more than 60,000 words have been added to the English
language--equal to half or more of the words in some languages."

Breathing Space: To Have or Not to Have Breathing Space 
http://www.breathingspace.com/artspub-to-have.shtml

"There are at least 10,000 new words that have been added to the
English language with the development of the internet alone."

SYSTRAN Translation Solutions
http://translationsoftware4u.com/language-translation-software.htm

Regarding the number of words:

"The English language contains more words than any other - between
500,000 and 750,000 words. German, a distant second, has only about
half that number."

SFPNN: Success Strategies --- by Michael Angier
http://www.sfpnn.com/Michael/Michael2002/ma052002.htm

"The two largest dictionaries - the Oxford English Dictionary and
Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary - each include
around half a million words (or lexemes)."

Dictionary.com FAQ: How many words are in the English language?
http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/h/howmanywords.html

"The English language contains about 490,000 words - plus another
300,000 technical terms, the most in any language, but it is doubtful
if any individual uses more than 60,000. British people who have had a
full 16 years of education use perhaps 5,000 words in speech and up to
10,000 words in written communications."

Graffik: Facts
http://www.graffik.interbit.pl/teksty/EFLfacts.htm

"The Guinness book of records says the English language contains
490000 words, plus about 300000 technical terms, the most in any
language. Shakespeare employed a vocabulary of about 33000 words."

Planet Forums: Learning English
http://www.planet.com.mm/forums/topic.cfm?id=6268 

"The statistics of English are astonishing. Of all the world's
languages (which now number some 2,700), it is arguably the richest in
vocabulary. The compendious Oxford English Dictionary lists about
500,000 words; and a further half-million technical and scientific
terms remain uncatalogued. According to traditional estimates,
neighboring German has a vocabulary of about 185,000 and French fewer
than 100,000, including such Franglais as le snacque-barre and le
hit-parade.

Robert McCrum, William Cran, & Robert MacNeil. The Story of English.
New York: Penguin, 1992"

Hypertextbook: Number of Words in the English Language
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JohnnyLing.shtml

"Is it true that English has the most words of any language? 

This question is practically impossible to answer... However, it seems
quite probable that English has more words than most comparable world
languages. The reason for this is historical. English was originally a
Germanic language, related to Dutch and German, and it shares much of
its grammar and basic vocabulary with those languages. However, after
the Norman Conquest in 1066 it was hugely influenced by Norman French,
which became the language of the ruling class for a considerable
period, and by Latin, which was the language of scholarship and of the
Church. Very large numbers of French and Latin words entered the
language. Consequently, English has a much larger vocabulary than
either the Germanic languages or the members of the Romance language
family to which French belongs. English is also very ready to
accommodate foreign words, and as it has become an international
language, it has absorbed vocabulary from a large number of other
sources. This does, of course, assume that you ignore 'agglutinative'
languages such as Finnish, in which words can be stuck together in
long strings of indefinite length, and which therefore have an almost
infinite number of `words'."

Ask Oxford: Is it true that English has the most words of any language?
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/mostwords?view=uk

If you'd like more information, here are some excellent articles that
you may want to read in their entirety:

Points of Reference Archive Speaking of Language...
http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/por/features/97/language.html

Ask Oxford: How many words are there in the English language?
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/numberwords?view=uk

World Wide Words: How Many Words?
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/howmany.htm

Google search strategy:

Google Web Search: "added to the english language"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22added+to+the+english+language

Google Web Search: "the english language contains" "100000..1000000 words"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22the+english+language+contains%22+%22100000..1000000+words%22

Google Web Search: "english language" "how many words"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22english+language%22+%22how+many+words

Thanks for a fascinating question! If anything is unclear, or if a
link doesn't work for you, please request clarification; I'll be glad
to offer further assistance before you rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud
bluebean-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars and gave an additional tip of: $10.00
very thorough and helpful and FAST! Thank you ever so much.
Kate

Comments  
Subject: Re: English language word count
From: corwin02-ga on 11 Jul 2004 18:23 PDT
 
American English,Brittish English, Australian English or South African English   ?
Subject: Re: English language word count
From: pinkfreud-ga on 12 Jul 2004 12:54 PDT
 
Thank you *very* much for the five-star rating and the generous tip!

~pinkfreud
Subject: Re: English language word count
From: rai130-ga on 13 Jul 2004 03:52 PDT
 
There are a couple of really interesting Bill Bryson books you should
have a look at. Cannae remember their names of course!

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