Don’t forget the relatively small language “Dutch” that has quote The largest monolingual dictionary in the world, it contains over 430,000 entries for Dutch words from 1500 to 1921. It is endless, because we can keep combining words. Many of the new words added to the ever-growing lexicon of the English language are just created from scratch, and often have little or no etymological pedigree. In fact, only 3 of them are used in common speech: In fact, only 3 of them are used in common speech: continuum / kənˈtɪnjuəm / (k ə n- tin -yoo- ə m), rarely written also “continuüm”, is something without gaps or jumps. Over 60 percent of all English words have Greek or Latin roots. English speakers will typically know at least 1500 French words without needing to study the language. The most obvious changes are the many words taken from Latin and Old French, which then came to Old English, and now the English we know today.. English grammar has also become very different from other Germanic languages, without becoming much like Romance languages. Viking origin of the words ‘ransack’ and ‘slaughter’ probably would not surprise anyone, but very “peaceful” words like ‘leg’, ‘sky’ or ‘window’ are also of Scandinavian provenance. A good example is the word dog , etymologically unrelated to any other known word, which, in the late Middle Ages, suddenly and mysteriously displaced the Old English word hound (or hund ) which had served for centuries. The study (which was based on the English language) revealed the following: Most adult native test-takers have a vocabulary range of about 20,000-35,000 words. March 18, 2020 1:08 pm . Knowing those subjects was evidence that a person was educated, so dropping a reference to Greek literature was encouraged even into the 20th century. And while some words or abbreviations do come from internet or text conversations, others may appear as entirely new words, a new meaning for an existing word, or a word that becomes more generalised than its former meaning, brought about by any one of the reasons above. Any concrete answer to this is technically false! However, it seems quite probable that English has more words than most comparable world languages. They still … It is believed that more than half of words in modern Russian are borrowings and about 70 percent of them are borrowed from English. English is made of Old English, Danish, Norse, and French, and has been changed by Latin, Greek, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Dutch and Spanish, and some words from other languages. To force a display language in Word that's different from that of your operating system: Select File > Options. 5 Responses to “How Many Words in English?” Wim on December 27, 2013 10:25 am. Many Greek words sprang from Greek mythology and history. K. Huth. Total word counts vary widely between world languages, making it difficult to say how many words native speakers know in general. There is no way to give an exact answer about how many words a language has. About 10 percent of the Latin vocabulary has found its way directly into English without an intermediary (usually French). The verb ‘get’, one of the most used in English, was actually borrowed from Old Norse. You may choose to find more words to fill out word families or align with sight vocabulary lists such as a Dolch Word List.Your learners will benefit most from terms that are familiar to them or make sense in their life. How Many Words Are in the Spanish Language? Every decade sees new slang terms like these appearing in the English language. The following lists provide sample words to use when teaching the sounds of the English language. The following are lists of words in the English language that are known as "loanwords" or "borrowings," which are derived from other languages. After English, what language has the most words? And, if you take it for granted, you probably haven’t stopped to think about just how weird it actually is. Read on to learn more interesting facts about the English language. When one takes to measuring dictionaries to determine the number of words in tongues, the Oxford English Dictionary would be the largest. Pimp. English has changed and developed over time, as all languages do. English has a fairly fixed word order. So, let's not keep you waiting and instead list out the common Latin words and their meanings used in the English language. Surely this word’s transformation is one of the strangest in the English language (which is saying a lot). About the English language adopted words from more than 350 languages have entered English in way. 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