How many words are there in the English language?
Actually believe it or not this is one of those questions that does not have a correct, or at least accurate, answer. According to experts, the number of words is changing every minute of the day. Because english is the most common language on the internet, non-english speaking people are creating words for their internet site. I did find a website that attempts to keep an accurate number of english words. According to Global Language Monitor… http://www.languagemonitor.com/default.php (scroll to the bottom of the page) As of February 17, 2005 at 12:40 p.m.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), a total of more than 600,000. Each of us, of course, has the capacity to remember but a fraction. How many exactly? Depends on whom you ask. A person’s vocabulary goes through dramatic transformation in life: from a handful of words by a babbling baby and the jargon-driven repertoire of the teenager, to the displays used by adults in different settings (home, work, friends, etc.). In truth, the inventory of words is never set. It isn’t only that as individuals we are in constant change but language as such isn’t static. The OED, as a historical lexicon, keeps on growing. It includes more entries today than ever. But a vast number of entries — they are called “voices” — are archaic, barely used today. All of which points out two opposing forces constantly at work on our language: ephemerality and durability. Only dead languages are static. Think of Aramaic, for example. Its use today is generally limited to scholars of history or religio
Nice one, Maggie… Seriously, the question is impossible to answer as the language is changing all the time, and one has also to decide what are English words anyway. Is ‘garage’ an English word? In the 19th century it wasn’t. Now it is. Then you have the various jargons – scientific, legal, medical and so on, even including the ghastly American military jargon – and the pidgins. Are pidgins separate languages? Then again, are you going to count slang words? Some people take the Complete Oxford English Dictionary as the standard. You can’t. They’re revising that all the time behind the scenes ready for the next edition. Oh yes, and how far back are you going to go? A lot of words used in Shakespeare’s and Chaucer’s times are English words – but no longer used. Do you include them? This applies to any spoken or written language – even Esperanto. If languages didn’t change, we’d still be grunting.
