Language Barrier

According to Global Language Monitor, around 5,400 new words are created every year; it's only the 1,000 or so deemed to be in sufficiently widespread use that make it into print.

The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, had 273,000 headwords; 171,476 of them being in current use, 47,156 being obsolete words and around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Since more than 650 new words, senses, and sub-entries have been added to its latest update.

Steven Frank, the author of "The Pen Commandments claims" that English has 500,000 words with German having about 135,000 and French having fewer than 100,000.

Although, a blog post for The Economist agrees that English is rich in vocabulary, but comparisons with other languages can’t be made for several reasons. The simplest problem in comparing the size of different languages is inflection.

Do we count “run”, “runs” and “ran” as three separate words? Another problem is multiple meanings. Do we count “run” the verb and “run” the noun as one word or two? What about “run” as in the long run of a play on Broadway?

When counting a language’s words do we count compounds? Is “every day” one word or two? Are the names of new chemical compounds words?

Some languages inflect much more, and some inflect much less (Chinese is famously ending-free), many habitually build long words from short ones, given the possibilities for compounds, German would quickly outstrip English. Turkish is similar in this way, you write it without spaces, pronounce it in one breath in speaking, it can’t be interrupted with digressions, and so forth… So, whether we count inflected forms will have a huge influence on final counts.

Another way of measuring the vocabulary in a language and comparing counts is by counting the number of words listed in a standard authoritative dictionary in that language. Wikipedia says it’s possible to count the number of entries in a dictionary, but it’s not possible to count the number of words in a language:

• Korean 1,100,373
• Japanese 500,000
• Italian 260,000
• English 171,476
• Russian 150,000
• Spanish 93,000
• Chinese 85,568

Let us ask a different, and more important question: Does it really matter?

Whatever languages you translate or interpret in we’re bound to have a rich body of words to work with, thus much lost in translation!

In a recent study which examined 7 widely spoken languages (English, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, and German), English came out on top as the most economical of the surveyed languages with the highest information density rate.

English is by far the most powerful language, and is the world's lingua franca. Mandarin, which ranks second, is only half as potent.

According to the Bible (Genesis 11:1-9) there was a time long ago when everyone on Earth spoke the same language, according to Judeo-Christian scripture. ... And the Lord said, "If as one people all sharing a common language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be beyond them."

Perhaps this is why some believe that speaking the same language would reduce conflicts, making the world a better place. A universal language would make international travel easier, when we all use the same language, we have a common understanding of precisely what we mean and what's expected. Having a common language also helps to keep the focus on the principle rather than allowing the exchange to dissolve into a personal conflict.

Was there once just a single language that all people could understand? Linguists don't know; there's just not enough information about the origins of language, and there are only theories about how our early ancestors formed their first words and sentences. Did early people imitate sounds they heard in the environment? Did they babble until certain sounds took on meaning? We'll probably never know, though linguists still study babies' brains to determine if language or grammar comes hardwired in our heads.

According to The Tower of Babel narrative in Genesis, as people once spoke the same language they banded together to build a tower in Babylon that glorified their own achievements, rather than those of their deity, God punished them. He ensured that mankind spoke different languages so that they'd never be able to work together to dishonor Him again!

It's unlikely that we'll see a world that speaks one language any time soon. Protecting each individual countries' cultures is a huge barrier, but an important one to ensure our world is as beautifully diverse as it's always been…

Food for thought!