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stranger
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stranger
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How many TOTAL words are there in the English language? I consider that: fight, fighting, fights, for example are 3 different words.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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“ The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. ” -OED Number of words in English
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Pooh-Bah
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There is an old movie in which a group of linguists are putting together the definitive dictionary to include every word in the English language. They are somewhere in the middle after years of isolation and work when one of them meets a deliveryman and almost word he says is new to the linguist. i should think the same thing would happen if you tried to count them.
(There is also a remake with Danny Kaye and the definitive encyclopedia of music if you like musicals.)
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member
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Last edited by goofy; 07/22/2008 8:45 PM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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a group of linguistsThere is a great movie, Ball of Fire (1941, link), by Howard Hawks, starring Gary Cooper as the philologist in a group of (seven?) encyclopedists. Barbara Stanwyck plays the singer, Sugarpuss O'Shea. This is one of her best performances.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I understand that English and Russian contain the most words
dalehileman
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, zed and nuncle, for the movie mention! I'd never heard of it before.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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a group of linguistsThere is a great movie, Ball of Fire (1941, link), by Howard Hawks, starring Gary Cooper as the philologist in a group of (seven?) encyclopedists. Barbara Stanwyck plays the singer, Sugarpuss O'Shea. This is one of her best performances. That's the one! I haven't seen it for years but the Danny Kaye one was on tv recently and jogged my memory.
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stranger
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stranger
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I can't imagine Russian having a vast number of words. Where would they have come from. From "War and Peace" I got the impression that the Russian was so poor that the upper classes spoke largely in French.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Here's an easier question to answer: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Angels, dance, and pinhead are all easier to set agreed definitions for than "word".
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Carpal Tunnel
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that the upper classes spoke largely in French. as did the British upper classes for several hundred years! (actually, Anglo-Norman)
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old hand
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old hand
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I understand that English and Russian contain the most words Probably not. The languages with the most words are probably fairly unknown tribal languages spoken by few people. Australian Aboriginal languages for example tend to be far more specific than English, dealing more with particulars than with generalisations. They have fewer generic terms and thousands of specific terms for things or actions. So instead of just using the generic word for 'river' to describe a place, they might have a name for each bend of the river, and words for every kind of relationship, every type of campfire, every object in terms of its sacredness, etc.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The languages with the most words are probably fairly unknown tribal languages spoken by few people. Australian Aboriginal languages for example tend to be far more specific than English, dealing more with particulars than with generalisations. When we get into polysynthetic languages we run into that nasty question: What is a word? Is, for example, old-male-goanna-with-one-toe-missing-on-its-left-front-foot-and-scratching-its-head with-its-right-hind-foot-while-sitting-next-to-the-stream-that-flows-only -during-the-occasional-rainy-season one word?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Danny KayeI see the remake, A Song Is Born (1948, link), was directed by Hawks, too.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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old hand
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The languages with the most words are probably fairly unknown tribal languages spoken by few people. Australian Aboriginal languages for example tend to be far more specific than English, dealing more with particulars than with generalisations. When we get into polysynthetic languages we run into that nasty question: What is a word? Is, for example, old-male-goanna-with-one-toe-missing-on-its-left-front-foot-and-scratching-its-head with-its-right-hind-foot-while-sitting-next-to-the-stream-that-flows-only -during-the-occasional-rainy-season one word? Only in German
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member
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Inuit: tusaatsiarunnanngittualuujunga "I can't hear very well" (according to this or even Sanskrit: mṛga-pracāra-sūcita-śvāpadam araṇyam "the game in the forest has been tracked by the movements of the deer" literally, "the forest (is) one-in-which-the-beasts-are-indicated-by-the-movements-of-the-deer" pratyāpanna-cetano vayasyaḥ "my friend has regained consciousness" literally "(my) friend (is) one-by-whom-consciousness-is-regained"
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The languages with the most words are probably fairly unknown tribal languages spoken by few people. Australian Aboriginal languages for example tend to be far more specific than English, dealing more with particulars than with generalisations. When we get into polysynthetic languages we run into that nasty question: What is a word? Is, for example, old-male-goanna-with-one-toe-missing-on-its-left-front-foot-and-scratching-its-head with-its-right-hind-foot-while-sitting-next-to-the-stream-that-flows-only -during-the-occasional-rainy-season one word? Only in German I don't think even German is up to handling that. Pitjantjatjara, maybe.
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