Language is primarily what connects us. Without the power of language, the world could never have developed to where it is today, and with globalisation is full flow, its influence on our world is growing day by day.
Languages have grown, developed, evolved, and sometimes become extinct. There are regional variations, dialects, lingos, and occasional controversies, but as long as there are human beings, too there will be language,
Even modern languages continue to grow, with 150 new words added to the English dictionary in 2011. Such words are usually connected to technological developments and trends, and in 2011 included; tweet, crowdsourcing, and social media, along with Americanisms, such as bromance and cougar.
Let’s take a look at the ten most widely spoken languages today, and see just how many words each of them has. Here they are, starting in tenth place, with Portuguese, as the language with the last number of words.
| Language | Number of words | |
| 1 | English | 250,000 – 1,013,913 |
| 2 | Japanese | 600,000 |
| 3 | Arabic | 60,000 – 140,000 |
| 4 | German | 135,000 |
| 5 | Hindi | 120,000 |
| 6 | Chinese | 100,000 |
| 7 | Spanish | 83,431 |
| 8 | French | 43,000 |
| 9 | Korean | 27,808 (average vocabulary) |
| 10 | Portuguese | 25,273 |
1.English
There is reported to be at least 250,000 words in the English language, with the Oxford English dictionary including 171,476 unique entries in current use, along with 47,156 obsolete words. There are, however, those who estimate the number to be much higher. According to the Global Language Monitor, as of January 1st 2012 there were just over a million words (1,013,913) in total, and this was further backed up by Google’s own research. The longest word included in the English dictionary is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis, and ‘cellar door’ is said to be the most beautiful word in terms of phonaesthetics.
2. Japanese
Japanese is reported to be the most complex written language in the world, with three different writing methods. In addition to this, the majority of words have two pronunciations, one with Japanese root, and the other with Chinese root. With approximately 600,000 words, the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test requires a knowledge of 10,000 for level 1 standard.
3.Arabic
Arabic is the official language in over 25 countries across Africa and the Middle East, and is spoken by an estimated 280 million people. There is much debate about the number of words within Arabic, with some claiming 500 million, but others, more realistically estimating between 60,000 -140,000. There are some who say that in Arabic you can find 500 separate words for ‘camel’.
4. German
In 2009, the BBC reported that the German ‘Duden’ dictionary had added an additional 5000 words, mainly adopted from the English speaking world. Words such as ‘After-show party’, ‘no-go area’, ‘it girl’, and ‘babyblues’ were all made official German words. This took the total number of words within the dictionary to approximately 135,000.
5. Hindi
In India alone there are approximately 415 languages, with 30 of them being spoken by over a million people. Hindi is by far the most widely spoken Indian language, with an approximate 295 million speakers, and with approximately 120,000 words. ‘meṃ’ meaning ‘in’ or ‘into’ is the most popular word, followed by ‘hai’ and ‘haim’; is and are, and then ‘nahīṃ’; no or not.
6. Chinese Mandarin
Chinese is the oldest written language in the world, dating back approximately 6000 years. There are approximately 100,000 characters in Chinese, although knowledge of only 10,000- 20,000 would be required to read a Chinese language newspaper. A version of Chinese using the Roman alphabet, called Pinwin has been developed to assist western students of the language.
7. Spanish
The DRAE, or Diccionario de la lengua española, has a total of 83,431 words, but it has to be considered that many dialects and slang words are omitted from the text. The average Spanish vocabulary is said to contain approximately 10,000 words, which thus suggests that only around 1/8th of the total words are in common use. Spanish has upwards of three million native speakers in 44 countries making it the fourth most widespread language, but with a total of 329 million individual speakers, it is the second most spoken language after Mandarin.
8. French
Apparently there are approximately 43,000 words in the French language, although it is said that you can communicate 70% of the time by using only the 300-400 most common words. The most common French words are the variations of ‘the’; le, la, les, and l’, followed by the verb ‘to be’; etre, and the verb ‘to have’; avoir.
9. Korean
According to online research, the average 30-year-old native speaker of English knows approximately 27,808 words, whereas Korean’s were estimated at 30,400 words. There are even more than ten ways to say ‘I’ in Korean, which can get confusing for anyone trying to learn the language. Although there is no official recording of the total number of words in the Korean vocabulary, around 55% are said to have been adopted from ancient Chinese, and in total they have 10,000 loaned words also.
10. Portuguese
Non-European speakers of Portuguese outnumber European speakers by approximately 20-1, with a total number in excess of 210 million speakers worldwide, with 192 million in Brazil alone. It is the most widely spoken language in the southern hemisphere. The Brazilian dictionary Aurélio lists 25,273 words in total, suggesting that this is the number of commonly used words in Portuguese.
Final thought
It is not yet understood exactly what impact globalisation may eventually have on language. In the past many have considered that eventually one language will be used by all. For now though, as numerous languages continue to grow, language translation services have an important role to play in the global environment.