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dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

I'm currently reading "the language web" and Aitchison claims that an educated speaker of English 'knows' 50000 words. What about people who are bilingual or are fairly proficient in another language. does that mean they 'know' 100000 words. If so then why can't the brain process 100000 words in one language?

Alitas · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 187 Location: Maine

If you are bilingual you know more than one word for the same thing.

Por ejemplo cuando veo una mesa, en mi mente pienso "mesa" O "table" dependiendo de lo que estoy haciendo en ese momento.

It's possible to have dual language activities at the same time. It definitely enhances your world.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Interesting the Turkish word for table is 'masa'

Alitas · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 187 Location: Maine

If you ever get the chance, watch the PBS Nova special called "In Search of First Language."

Absolutely, mind-boggingly excellent.

Nova also did one on "The Birth of the Universe."

I love that show!

wanderlust1066 · Joined: 16 Aug 2003 Posts: 82 Location: Kowloon, Hong Kong

What do you mean by the word "word"?

J-Pop · Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 215 Location: USA

Dr.J · Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 304 Location: usually Japan

I'm not sure about the facts. I think 50,000 was the number of words one can recognise; generally we only produce about 20,000 in speaking and writing. Actually 50,000 seems quite high.

Also, there are only probably about 60,000 words in regular use in the English language. So we probably could learn 100,000, but it would be like learning to ride one of those old bicycles with one really BIG wheel at the front and a little tiny wheel at the back. A waste of time.

In fact, If you know around 10,000 words of any language you can probably get by.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

When I stumble across "kind" in an English sentence, it has meanings and connotations well-defined by the English contexts in which it may be embedded; if the word is "Kind", and pronounced with a short "i" monophtong, then it can only be a German word, and it takes on a meaning that's totally divorced from the first type; yet, there is an English word "kindergarten", which is in fact a German loanword in which the first part is the plural form of the word "Kind" - it's a "garden for children". How many different words do I "know"? Kind, Kinder (German); kind (English noun); kind (English adjective); kindergarten...

How about the different grammatical forms - one foot, two feet, child, children; are the two Chinese personal pronouns "ta" two different words (yes, different meanings: He and she), or not? Is "goes" a spearate lexical unit?

struelle · Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 2372 Location: Shanghai

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

You can read one of the UK tabloids with a vocabulary level of 2,000.

My problem is that I cannot understand the tabloid press now because I am unfamiliar with the cultural setting. I know nothing of the stars of British soap operas or of which football player is bonking which singer.

Understanding is not just about lexemes !

Dr.J · Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 304 Location: usually Japan

I'm sure many people will agree with this one; that there is a language 'switch' when you go from one language to another - so sometimes I'm in 'L1 mode' and I hear a quiet far off conversation and I try to squeeze the sounds into my L1 boxes. When it doesn't fit I realise they are talking in L2 so I switch to that and it becomes clear(er).

Because it is based in context, we could potentially store thousands of different meanings for the same sound, each different depending on the context. cool, huh.

yaramaz · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2003 6:29 am Post subject:

Speaking of cognates, Turkey is an intriguing place for that sort of thing(for me anyway...). For example, the turkish word for p-e-n-i-s is sik, pronounced 'sick'. None of the foreigners here use the term sick to describe being ill because the Turks look at us like we are mad, rude folk. We actually use the turk word, hasta, even when speaking English (hasta la vista, baby?) Also, the word for stop is dur, which bring to my mind a French thought to ponder whilst paused at a stop sign : la vie est dur... life is hard. Very Happy

There are countless other examples that have kept me amused over long sessions of tea, such as the fact that a boat is called a kayak (trippy!), etc, etc. Afrikaans/Dutch speaking folk will have a field day here with words such as Sokak (alley), Ufuk (horizon), Karpuz (watermelon), Mutfak (kitchen). My South African flatmate and I had a great time last year playing with the trans-lingual puns.

darkpoet · Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 18 Location: Halifax Canada

Okay for the people who are guessing at words... I have another but I know that yes the average English speaker knows 50 000 words. This, of course, is the average English speaker who has an education. This is the measurement of a high school education.

Newspapers are usually printed at a Grade 8 level education (20 000), while tabloids are printed somewhere around grade 4 (more than 2000 I hope but I don't know and why would you care?)...

There are far more than 100 000 words in the language and it's easily possible to know that many or more... especially considering that a lot of words in English carry several distinct definitions... some of which qualify as seperate words. I'm pretty sure this number is closer to 1/4 million. Especially considering the dialect-interactions between American, British, Canadian, and Oceanic dialects (let alone local dialects).

Perhaps half of 250 000 or so are "in use" but even out-of-style words are still words even if they aren't in your dollar-store dictionary...

I mean how often do you use "wanton" or "deign" or "robotics" or "devolution" or "hermeneutic" or "antidisestablishmentarianism"? But you still know what they mean, right? -all except that last one, of course -and before anyone asks, yes they're all real words. Don't believe me? Get a better dictionary.

Oh, and the word "word" itself is misleading because we forget that colloquialisms are really hyphenated (joined) words that lost their hyphens but still carry a bit of extra meaning not obvious when the words are analyzed separately... ie. "golden rule" and "siamese twins" -Just the same as acronyms become words too... ie. "ram" and "nasa" and "gi" - perhaps mostly because sometimes people do not know the original defintion...

Those who have seen medical dictionaries, legal dictionaries, psychology dictionaries, and other "technical dictionaries (like the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language) should know that the English vocabulary far exceeds what any one person could ever learn but just because a word is specialized or dialectical doesn't exclude it from being "in" the English language...

And for the record "D'oh" became was recognized a few years back as an exclamatory (signifying an accident) a few years back. Shakespeare would be proud.

End of rant.

yaramaz · Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2003 7:19 am Post subject:

I use wanton, deign, and devolve fairly regularly, and have been known to throw a good old antidisestablishmentarianism into my conversations. Also, since my father is a robot-building engineer, I have used the word robotics in casual conversation. They are not exactly obscure words.

But then again, I am a fierce geek.