Modern English evolved from the Germanic language family, which also relates to Dutch and German, among other languages. According to researchers at the University of Glasgow, the winner is….Scots! Moreover, many languages habitually build long words from short ones. Yet half of these are in Kanji (Chinese characters) — with around 1200 Kanji words you could manage a newspaper. . Some of the variants are American and British English, which are the most common. Although it is possible to count the number of entries in a dictionary, it is not possible to count the number of words in a language. Or they can be evolve into a new form ambuscade has been rebranded by the snappier ambush. The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 words. Njerep (Nigeria) Nigeria is one of Africa's most ethnically diverse countries, which makes perfect … Usually somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 words. Also, lexical counting is very difficult to do. No language is an island and there is an extensive world trade in words a phrases. An article denotes whether a noun is specific or unspecific. You may not even recognize many of the uses of the words. Winchester thinks this … They claim that Scots has 421 words for snow. Of course languages like Chinese are incommensurable to a degree since the word structure is different. In fact, from the 9th century until the 14th century, a form of French was even the “official” language in the courts of England! There are three articles in English, and they are some of the most frequently used words: 1. the 2. a 3. an Accordingly, the 23 volumes of The Oxford English Dictionary takes up more shelf space than their French, Italian, Spanish and Russian rivals combined. The core problem is philosophical as much as linguistic: how do you define a word? They are all in a race to have more and more meanings. Modern English was adopted in many regions of the world to the extent that it has now become one of the most spoken languages of the world. What language has the most words? 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. (Chinese is famously ending-free). That said, it is important to understand the difference between “passive knowledge” and “active … As lexicographer Kory Stamper explains, “English has been borrowing words from other languages since its infancy.” As many as 350 other languages are represented and their linguistic … In compiling a dictionary, a lexicographer decides whether the evidence of use is sufficient to justify an entry in the dictionary. Select file Browse. The following table contains the top 100 languages by estimated number of native speakers in the 2007 edition of the Swedish encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin.As census methods in different countries vary to a considerable extent, and given that some countries do not record language in their censuses, any list of languages by native speakers, or total speakers, is effectively based on estimates. The Greeks and Romans made a solid start in science and medicine. Now English is in the box seat as the de facto global language. Europe has historically been Silicon Valley of the word generation market. What I Learned From Writing 200 Blog Posts, Here Are a Few Foolproof Ways to Become a Better Storyteller, Nobody Is Going to Teach You How to Write, Words Matter, The Importance of Proofreading, My Gonzo Night at Hunter S. Thompson’s Cabin — Now on Airbnb, Learning to Write Horror From Edgar Allan Poe. Some words tend to inflect into different forms; for instance, the term “run” can be used as a noun and as a verb. Which countries do not have an official language? In the spoken form, however, it is a family of languages or dialects. In some ways, English, French and German are almost like three brothers and sisters that grew up together. So, whether we count inflected forms will have a huge influence on final counts. But we can not be sure, because the statistics experts use take into account only a minority of languages. Plus there entrant (RedBox) merges specialist and technical y dictionaries? Japanese is another heavily backed contender — boasting a mighty 500,00 words. Some ‘ghost words’ never make it out of the dictionary — having originally got there through misprint or mishearing. The most idiosyncratic and wordiest of languages acquires and sheds words with stunning speed For the most part, the column is an innocuous discussion of words that have recently entered the language. Even as new ones are added, older ones fall out of favor. Varieties like the Indian and Ugandan English have developed strong local flavor, with the Indian English sounding undistinguishable to native English speakers. Linguists tend to avoid answering this question because what constitutes a "word" is difficult to pin down, and any precise definition of a word would probably unfairly exclude other languages. Famously the Alaskan language, Yupik, uses one word, Tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq, where English requires twelve: He hadn’t yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer. Rype has a post on the 23 most common English idioms, which will help you continue to learn to … Username * E-Mail * Password * Confirm Password * Profile Picture. Other variations include Indian English, Canadian, and Australian English. Which language has the most words? German is obvious; it is a trifle to coin a new compound word for a new situation. Which Country's National Anthem Has No Words? Chinese, for example, is logographic (combining images) while German is alphabetic (combining letters). Who knows how Korean got to the top of the pile, but there is definitely some funny business involving the runner up: ‘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’. Chinese, for example, is a single language in terms of its written form. The English language has one of the largest vocabularies of all the languages of the world. The term for these linguistic fun and (word) games is morphology — a topic popular with the scrabble-master and pointy-headed communities. The Germanic family languages share much of their grammar and essential vocabulary. That is only two volumes, though you need strong arms to lift them, Which countries do not have an official language? But don’t get discouraged! Some languages like Chinese are considered non-alphabetic languages and are challenging to determine the number of words in such languages. Because US slang can be different from UK slang, you’ll want to make sure to learn the English slang words of the people you’ll have contact with the most. All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions © 2020 worldatlas.com. It's popular to say that English has the most words based upon simply counting the number of dictionary lemmas. About the English Language Teaching Pack (£1.99 * English: Global Language (free). An example is the German language, rich in compound words that are usually counted as a single term. Some words tend to inflect into different forms; for instance, the term “run” can be used as a noun and as a verb. The English language has many varieties depending on the accent used in the literature. A “typical person” knows about 70,000 words. Japan’s 128 million people comprise the language’s entire native speaker population, enough to make it the ninth most widely spoken language in the world. Some languages inflect much more than English. English is a delectable, slow-cooked language of languages. Chinese has about just 60,000 words. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries. During those years, the common (non-royal) people spoke an older form of English, whil… • Burushaski: masculine, feminine, animals/countable nouns and inanimates/uncountable nouns/abstracts/fluids Students of the English language should not despair, however. A lot of the sounds in… Other variations include Indian English, Canadian, and Australian English. The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use (and 47,156 obsolete words). it's constructed from the languages of the historic tribes of the discipline and the ones of invaders such because the exclusive norse and norman businesses as good as phrases taken from eu households that had been married with. the reason is English and words of most of the language around the world are formed by putting letters together and a word can have many variation while Chinese words is not. Surely the lexical equivalent of taking performance enhancing drugs? Yet English remains dominant perhaps not in the number of words, but in the reach and power of the language. Which language has the most words? There is a Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Language, as described above, is species-specific to human beings. That’s a lot, right?! This is a list of dictionaries considered authoritative or complete by … It is thought that the English language has the most words than any other language in the world, although it is not easy to determine. These varieties are named according to the country where it is prevalent. Some languages inflect much less. Clearly a crude headword count is not sufficient in itself to establish the size of a lexicon. Over the years, the English language has adopted words from other languages, and this has made it an international language. [English] certainly has the largest vocabulary... by a long, long, long long, way. One crude yardstick is to count the number of headwords or entries in each language’s standard reference dictionary. Register Now. One of the problems with counting words is intonation. Even native speakers don’t know all the words in their dictionary. Japanese words have … Native speakers actively use only a fraction of these wordswhen they speak. The most useful, however, are appropriated by other languages. Modern English is considered to be in the works of William Shakespeare and also in the King James Version Bible. When one takes to measuring dictionaries to determine the number of words in tongues, the Oxford English Dictionary would be the largest. However, the word put later outpaced it, and run eventually overtook them both as the English language's most complex word. In the Romance languages below, the word for 'mother' is a cognate in all the six contemporary languages considered, however the word for 'father' is a cognate only in four of the five: in Rumanian, the original word inherited from Latin pater has been replaced by a completely different word, tata. * What is the ‘language instinct? By Benjamin Elisha Sawe on March 25 2020 in World Facts. Others become obsolete — Groak, anyone ? Or is that thirteen, as some would count contractions like hadn’t as two word? The Oxford English Dictionary defines 615,100 words. Which language has the most words for snow? Various countries have various accents to the English language that creates many types. For example, is the Ge… Each language influenced the other two languages in some ways, but one of the biggest influences on English was French. One of the methods that have been used to determine the language with the most words is by the use of the size of dictionaries, which works for the main European languages. The reason why you want to focus on the most common English words is because we rarely use all the words we have in our toolbelt. English has the largest lexicon (number of words) of any European language. Rather as China is to the rest of the world in population, English is in the population of its words. But, the number of words in the Oxford and Webster Dictionaries are not the same as the number of wor… It is generally recognised that of the 6,912 languages and dialects English has the most words. It has been mentioned that English as a language does no longer truthfully exist. To learn Arabic, you have to learn a new alphabet, and get used to reading from right to left. Modern English evolved from the Germanic language family, which also relates to Dutch and German, among other languages. Unfortunately morphology — with its endless ‘you can’t compare this language with that one’ objections — is no help in establishing an agreed and reasonably objective measuring stick. Shakespeare invented 1,700 English words or at least first recorded their use. ….it seems quite probable that English has more words than most comparable world languages.English has a much larger vocabulary than either the Germanic languages or the … Romance language family to which French belongs. First, let’s look at how many words are in the Dictionary. Modern English evolved from Early Modern English and had more words than the latter. Better yet, learn the first 100 as soon as you can. Which Countries Recognize Sign Language As An Official Language? Latin and Polish, for example, are highly inflected while non-alphabetic languages — like Chinese and Arabic — have (arguably) no inflections in written form. Think about how you speak your native language. Over the years, the English language has adopted words from other languages, and this has made it an international langua… 2. First Name * Last Name * Display name * Does that make Spanish richer in word count? This decision is not the same as determining whether the word exists. The British Empire helped in spreading the English language around the world using its colonies by the late 18th century. English is considered the language with the most words. Over the years, the English language has adopted words from other languages, and this has made it an international language. Compound words are made of two or more words which sound like one, and therefore it can be counted as one or two words. We always answer: learn the most common English words. They handed baton to the French bossed the planet in diplomacy (ambassador, detente, charge d’affair) and cuisine. In English you would need at least double this lexicon to manage a leaflet designed for children. English was originally a Germanic language, related to Dutch and German, and it shares much of its grammar and basic vocabulary with those languages. source. English has the largest lexicon (number of words) of any European language. … In Africa, the changes are noticed in countries like Uganda, Nigeria, and Congo. Sanskrit basically consists of 40% Greek words + 40% Tamil words + 10% loan words from other languages + 10% newly coined words. English was majorly influenced by Norman French and Latin, with English borrowing many words from these languages. My favorite is ignoranus, for a person who is both ignorant and an asshole. They house an astonishing 615,000 words or thereabouts. According to this extensively researched dictionary comparison, Korean and Finnish take gold and silver. English accommodates foreign words… it has become an international language {absorbing} vocabulary from a large number of other sources. The Germanic family languages share much of their grammar and essential vocabulary. English is considered the language with the most words. There is no certain answer to this because we often define ‘language’ and ‘word’ in different ways. The reason for this is historical. There are at least 10 words with hundreds of definitions each, like "go" and "put." French for instance has less than 100,000 and German 200,000. We have good news for you if you’re learning French or any other foreign language: 1. I can think of many uses for that one. Most dictionaries also tend to exclude words after they fall out of common usage, consolidating only the most common words. In some languages, long words are built from short words, for instance, the German language. Some languages have multiple inflections or variants of a word: have, had, having etc. Meaningful word count comparisons are difficult if not impossible between languages using different writing systems. 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 was majorly influenced by Norman French and Latin, with English borrowing many words from these languages. However, it seems quite probable that English has more words than most comparable world languages. That still amounts to a whole lot, though! The Spanish verb has dozens of forms—estoy, estás, está, “I am,” “you are,” “he is” and so on. It seems that English is the language with the most words, with a total number of words estimated between 500 thousand and 1.2 million. Though the English language has many quirks, one of its most interesting is homographs: words that are spelled identically but have different meanings or definitions. English is used as the official language in many countries that have other indigenous languages. Then there is the number of words you need to convey an agreed meaning. Other members of the animal kingdom have the ability to communicate, through vocal noises or by other means, but the most important single feature characterizing human language (that is, every individual language), against every known mode of animal communication, is its infinite productivity and creativity. * What is Globish? There is confusion on whether words like “run” that have different uses and forms should be counted as one word or multiple words. There are around 130,000 words in French. 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