Janet CollinsThe English Language
May 25th 2009 22:30
If the number of words in any language bears any relation to the difficulty in grasping it, then it must be English that iwould have to be the most difficult to learn.
According to The Global Language Monitor, the online newspaper of global English, the number of words in our language has reached 999,780, just 220 short of one million words. The Monitor has been publishing a count down to one million words and estimates that the English language will reach that target on 10 June this year at 10:22am (Stratford-on-Avon time).
They have also pulled together some interesting statistics on the number of words in various languages. The English language is way out in front in the number of words, followed by Chinese (including various dialects) with more than 500,000 and Japanese at 232,000 words.
These are followed by Spanish, Russian, German, Hindi, French, Arabic and Toki Pona, although I would think that a few may have been omitted. Portuguese, for one, doesn’t even get a mention on this list.
They have also pulled together some other interesting statistics about languages including the top languages spoken throughout the world, the top languages on the internet and some really interesting trivia on language.
Some of these come from a recent article in The New York Post, “The English Conquest” where journalist Stephen Lynch has written some of this information into quite an interesting article on language and its history.
Here is the table of statistics:
The full article can be viewed here.
Sourced:
www.languagemonitor.com
www.nypost.com
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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Comment by Janet Collins
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Are there any words from the global economic crisis that might make it do you think or are they all phrases?
Comment by Morgan Bell
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i cant think of any economic ones right now, but ill come back if one pops up and grabs my attention
Comment by samaritan
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Comment by Janet Collins
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I think a hell of a lot of words are created by tv scriptwriters - and plenty of phrases as well!
Comment by Janet Collins
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I thought that bit was really interesting too. If you make up some words that make it into the dictionary, you can always be remembered for it later - particularly if you become famous.
Comment by Morgan Bell
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Comment by Mr Nice Guy
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Interest post Janet . . . as always
Comment by Janet Collins
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I hope you enjoyed all the trivia about language too. I thought it was all pretty interesting.
Comment by Wilson Pon
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PS: By the way, what's Toki Pona? Is it something related with sign language or...?
Comment by Janet Collins
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I thought the same myself about Toki Pona. Maybe it's an islander language or something. I didn't go so far as to research it.
As far as the million words goes - I wonder how many words most of us use anyway. Even on a daily basis, most of us would use very limited language.
As always, thanks. An interesting and funny comment.
Comment by Chris Champion
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I once read that about 750 million people speak English, but only about 350 million learned it as a mother tongue. Which adds poignancy to your excellent point that English, with its vast vocabulary and many shades of meaning, is a tough language to learn. Objectively, it makes a lousy global lingua franca.
The claim of one million words, however, is open to interpretation. The Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words and the full Webster's about 450,000. The difference - the other half-million words - is technical and scientific terms. And yes, we create more of these every day, in IT, medicine, other branches of science etc.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Your point is a good one. I would like to see how other languages actually import words into their dictionaries as much as we do.
Does the text term of "thanx" become English language or is it relegated to slang. How many words make it into the English dictionary that are actuallly just colloqial speak?
It would be really interesting to see how many words make it into other languages. Are they really words or just casual terms?
I actually don't know.
Comment by The Shuffle
When I was learning spanish i realized this due to the fact that it was extremely difficult to express oneself as there weren't as many adjectives!
No wonder when people come to england or learn english they go wild with adjectives!
Comment by katyzzz
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Comment by Janet Collins
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I have been promising myself that I would learn Spanish for so long now but never seem to get around to it.
Your point is a good one. Sometimes more words can actually make a language more interesting.
Thanks for dropping in.
Comment by Janet Collins
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I believe you.
Comment by Wilson Pon
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Everytime, when I login to my Twitter account, I see many a couple of new "Twitter" words appear on the top right!