The English Language free teaching & learning materials
How many words?

'June 9, 2009 is the day when the English language reaches one million words!'

This claim by an American media company surprised the English linguist, David Crystal.

Professor Crystal is perhaps the leading expert on the English language. 'There have been a million words in English for a very long time,' he says

So who is right? How many words are there in English? And how does this compare with other languages?
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

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The OED defines 615,100 words.

Of these words, 41,700 are obsolete. This means that you are unlikely to use them.

There are even 240 ghost words. A ghost word has never existed outside dictionaries.

What is a word?

This is a surprisingly complex question

The
OED distinguishes 430 senses for the verb set. Is each a separate word?

And what about numbers? If you count to a million, do you have a million words?
Dictionary Size

The OED defines 615,100 words.

A similar German dictionary offers around 180,000 words.

A Russian language dictionary has around 160,000 words

A French edition has less than 150,000.

This suggests English probably has the biggest vocabulary of all the European languages.
How many words do English speakers use?

There are different opinions on this question. Lederer has suggested that a typical English speaker has a vocabulary of between 10,000 and 20,000 words. Steven Pinker talks of 60,000 ‘by high school’.

There is, of course, a difference between our passive and active language. Passive language consists of those words we recognise but perhaps do not say or write. Our active vocabulary is those word we use in speech and writing.
Why English?
The linguist Richard Lederer believes that the English language is the most 'democratic' in history. By this he means that the users of English help change and improve it. This is because English:
  • English easily imports words from other languages, cultures and traditions.
  • "the relative simplicity of its grammar and syntax.”
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