How come English has a million words?

I read somewhere that english has over a million words in it's vocabulary, and I've been wondering what exactly are the majority of these words.

My natal language (romanian) for example, only has about 220.000 words in it's vocabulary, and it includes medical terms and all that.

So I don't understand what are all those extra words in english.

I speak both languages and almost everything from the normal spoken english has an equivalent in romanian, so I am very curios what all those extra words could be.

PS: This is a link to the article http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/10/english-million-word-milestone

The fact that Web 2.0 is considered the millionth word, is weird tho...

What's the romanian word for Chillaxin'?

And that's why nobody speaks your second-rate language: not enough words.

But how many of those words are still in use?

Don't know. They explored that issue in George Orwell's 1984. They wanted to get rid of unnecessary words. I think the generally argument against this is that it restricts the creative ways in which people can express themselves. having many words makes for a poetic language.

American English is a Type 1 language, meaning that it is multi-cultural and multi-faceted. It's the #1 second language in the world for a reason. It's also an incredibly evolutionary language, as it is constantly updated and changing. There's a problem inherent in that, however: because of the evolutionary way that American English is, it makes it an incredibly difficult language for many to learn when it is not their primary language.

Much of the additions are based on pop culture references that end up being part of the language because of their common usage, such as "dawg", "chillaxin", "broseph", and even some other crazy words like "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis".

It's just the way our language works. Don't worry - everyone will speak it in about twenty years or so.

My language only has two words.

Ye'd be surprised how many of those million words are just variations of the word 'Arse'

Me not know!

English has borrowed a lot of words from other languages.

My high school english teacher told us that the average person who speaks english knows between 250 000 and 350 000 words. I would guess that the other 65-75% of them are underused so much that they are becoming dead, much like the entire Latin language did. How many of us knew what the word garrulous meant before the New Yorker used it to describe the Bombcast? I'm betting we all had to look it up. It's an english word but we'd never use it in our everyday lives unless we were verbose.

My high school english teacher told us that the average person who speaks english knows between 250 000 and 350 000 words. I would guess that the other 65-75% of them are underused so much that they are becoming dead, much like the entire Latin language did. How many of us knew what the word garrulous meant before the New Yorker used it to describe the Bombcast? I'm betting we all had to look it up. It's an english word but we'd never use it in our everyday lives unless we were verbose.

The real answer is because its a hybrid of Germanic languages with Latin and a whole load of different loan words from its lengthy history. Most languages only have one source like Latin and Germanic languages.

@jakob187 said:

It's the #1 second language in the world for a reason

Two reasons actually:

1) The British Empire

2) America's dominance over global media

The Americans added a lot of useless words, probably.

(British) English is what happens when your country gets invaded by the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans, and gets settled by people from everywhere else.

Really, English only makes sense historically, when you consider who had just decided to invade that island off the coast of mainland Europe. I can totally understand why it can be hard to pick up as a second language, when it's already all sorts of complicated as a first language.

@Ubersmake said:

(British) English is what happens when your country gets invaded by the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans, and gets settled by people from everywhere else. Really, English only makes sense historically, when you consider who had just decided to invade that island off the coast of mainland Europe. I can totally understand why it can be hard to pick up as a second language, when it's already all sorts of complicated as a first language.

I never understood why people feel the need to put British in front of english. Its like saying spanish spanish. The english we use in england is english, it doesnt need to be classified as anything but english. American english should be classified as such because it is a varient of english.

Also english has lots of words because of slang and we borrow alot.

That's million words.

Why come only one girl?

@Alexandruxx:

Why does it matter? I hate to be 'that guy' who just comes in to a thread to yell "so what!!!!" but really...man, really why does this matter to you or anyone else?

Because we hate to be at a loss for words.

Don't worry--we don't use most of them.

@Titus said:

@mosespippy said:

My high school english teacher told us that the average person who speaks english knows between 250 000 and 350 000 words. I would guess that the other 65-75% of them are underused so much that they are becoming dead, much like the entire Latin language did. How many of us knew what the word garrulous meant before the New Yorker used it to describe the Bombcast? I'm betting we all had to look it up. It's an english word but we'd never use it in our everyday lives unless we were verbose.

Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose!

Yeah that's more or less the reason right there. It's so we can alliterate like a boss!

@Herocide: I appreciate the Homestar Runner reference.

If I had to guess, I'd say because the English sailed all over the world and Americans came in contact with a lot of immigrants, so we picked up a lot of loanwords from other languages.

Don't worry - everyone will speak it in about twenty years or so.

@Mr_Skeleton said:

English has borrowed a lot of words from other languages.

All (most) languages have been doing that for many many many years, actually

And since English along with the other European languages mostly developed from the same Germanic/Latin bugaloo-salad of languages means they're mostly borrowing from the same source. But of course English straight up kidnaps modern words like "autobahn" or from German, for example.

@DeF: English is a romantic language as is spanish, italian and french and they all derive from latin.

Yeah, we've had some years to add some words to our vocabulary.

We all got together and decided to make it a million words just to confuse outsiders.

@CptChiken said:

@Ubersmake said:

(British) English is what happens when your country gets invaded by the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans, and gets settled by people from everywhere else. Really, English only makes sense historically, when you consider who had just decided to invade that island off the coast of mainland Europe. I can totally understand why it can be hard to pick up as a second language, when it's already all sorts of complicated as a first language.

I never understood why people feel the need to put British in front of english. Its like saying spanish spanish. The english we use in england is english, it doesnt need to be classified as anything but english. American english should be classified as such because it is a varient of english.

Also english has lots of words because of slang and we borrow alot.

Which would actually be a legitimate thing, since there are differences between the language spoken in Spain and the one spoken in Mexico.

@MysteriousBob said:

Two reasons actually:

1) The British Empire

2) America's dominance over global media

Those were the days

@Dany said:

@DeF: English is a romantic language as is spanish, italian and french and they all derive from latin.

Yeah, we've had some years to add some words to our vocabulary.

No it isn't.

It's a Germanic language.

@jakob187 said:

There's a problem inherent in that, however: because of the evolutionary way that American English is, it makes it an incredibly difficult language for many to learn when it is not their primary language.

What??? English is one of the most easiest language to learn. Not even close to the complexity of german, russian or even french or italian.

@TheSeductiveMoose said:

@Dany said:

@DeF: English is a romantic language as is spanish, italian and french and they all derive from latin.

Yeah, we've had some years to add some words to our vocabulary.

No it isn't.

It's a Germanic language.

This. It's far from a Romance language.

@TheSeductiveMoose: oh, apparently it is. huh, guess my teacher was wrong :P

That's because we make up 100 words everyday!

English is a dead language.

@TheSeductiveMoose: oh, apparently it is. huh, guess my teacher was wrong :P

@Enigma777 said:

@Dany said:

@TheSeductiveMoose: oh, apparently it is. huh, guess my teacher was wrong :P

Yes.... your teacher...

you want pics?

@Enigma777 said:

@Dany said:

@TheSeductiveMoose: oh, apparently it is. huh, guess my teacher was wrong :P

Yes.... your teacher...

you want pics?

That's why I like english, there are many ways to say one thing, which have their own subtleties to them that changes the tone. That is to say, English is a very expressive language, it's super easy to express exactly what you think. It's not nice and poetic feeling/sounding like French or anything, but it sure it expressive.

English as a language is also not afraid to incorporate words from other languages, and is constantly growing and adopting new words at a high rate. That keeps it big.

@Enigma777 said:

@Dany said:

@Enigma777 said:

@Dany said:

@TheSeductiveMoose: oh, apparently it is. huh, guess my teacher was wrong :P

Yes.... your teacher...

you want pics?

Only if they're naughty.

She taught me many things.

@CrazyBagMan said:

That's million words.

/thread

I think it just has to do with how crazy ivy league colleges in America and England got in cataloguing words. I suspect there are more than 220,000 romanian words in existence if only they would be discovered by linguists. Also I think linguists have been more willing to accept new words and catalogue them even though they are of a perceived lower class.

@Rudyftw said:

English is a dead language.

Yeah, you're right, nobody even uses it anymore

@Video_Game_King said:

@CptChiken said:

@Ubersmake said:

(British) English is what happens when your country gets invaded by the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans, and gets settled by people from everywhere else. Really, English only makes sense historically, when you consider who had just decided to invade that island off the coast of mainland Europe. I can totally understand why it can be hard to pick up as a second language, when it's already all sorts of complicated as a first language.

I never understood why people feel the need to put British in front of english. Its like saying spanish spanish. The english we use in england is english, it doesnt need to be classified as anything but english. American english should be classified as such because it is a varient of english.

Also english has lots of words because of slang and we borrow alot.

Which would actually be a legitimate thing, since there are differences between the language spoken in Spain and the one spoken in Mexico.

Oh lord were to begin .... "Spanish" are all the languages spoken in spain , which include Gallego , Catalan etc. Castellano is the most spoken variant of spanish , the one that is spoken in Mexico and most of latin america . The only diference (outside of accents) between castellano from Spain and Mexico are the pronouns Tu/Vos , Ustedes /Vosotros (you) ; outside from that they are spoken exactly the same (although there are more loan words from english in Mexico than Spain). Also English is an easy language to learn.

My guess is that a lot of words from other languages have been adopted by English speakers.

Nouns. There are millions of things in the world. You are going to need a lot of names.

So many synonyms.

awesome. thats why.

Borrowed words, "official" slang, stupid yet funny variations on existing words such as Colbert's "truthiness", and others all contribute to this. hundreds of thousands of those words are likely synonyms as well.