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
Kate
~pinkfreud
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
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