Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: english wordcount

Sounds a bit odd, but I read once that English has the highest number of
words (can't remeber if it was "the highest in the world" or merely the
highest of European languages, which is probably more likely), mainly due to
the fact that English has taken words from celtic and latin sources, so
there's a lot of "doubles" - take "start" and "begin", for example... or
"discourse" and "speech"..
Anyhow. I'm trying to prove this to a very annoying friend of mine who
doesn't believe me :). I've done my wikipedia search, googled around, and I
can't find any info on the exact (or approximate) number of words in
English. Or Italian, for that matter.
Well - if you have any ideas, pray tell ;)
Tang


I think that also italian language has a lot of doubles,but i don't know how 
much! (And i'm really not interested! =) ) 

 English. Or Italian, for that matter.
Per l'italiano, il «Grande dizionario italiano dell’uso» in 6 volumi (più
il supplemento «Nuove parole italiane dell’uso»), diretto da Tullio De
Mauro, conta più di 250.000 lemmi.
In italiano c'è poi il problema dato dal fatto che le parti variabili del
discorso son parecchie... e i verbi, per esempio, sono *molto* variabili:
la coniugazione italiana non è paragonabile a quella inglese. Insomma, in
italiano i lessemi sono molti più dei lemmi.
Per quanto riguarda l'inglese, il dizionario più completo è l'OED.
Da 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary
:
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a comprehensive dictionary published
by the Oxford University Press (OUP). Generally regarded as the definitive
dictionary of the English language, it includes about 290,500 main entries
comprising 350 million printed characters. In addition to the headwords of
main entries, the OED contains 157,000 combinations and derivatives in bold
type, and 169,000 phrases and combinations in bold italic type, making a
total of 616,500 word-forms.
Che ci siano addirittura altri 500.000 lemmi scientifico tecnologici non
catalogati, mi pare tanto: vorrei sapere su che cosa si basi questa stima.
E saranno tutti termini inglesi, o moltissimi di essi saranno esotismi?
Ovviamente, termini tecnici e specialistici, non riportati su dizionari
generalisti, ce ne sono anche in italiano e nelle altre lingue.
-- 
Bye, Ghost of Lem Novantotto
"Ghost" si dissolverà presto.  Il mio nick tornerà ad
essere "Lem Novantotto". L'indirizzo del From resterà
invariato.

 celtic and latin sources,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the result of a computerized survey of roughly 80,000 words in the
old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition) was published in Ordered 
Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973).
They reckoned the proportions as follows:
        a.. Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
        b.. French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
        c.. Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
        d.. Greek: 5.32%
        e.. No etymology given: 4.03%
        f.. Derived from proper names: 3.28%
        g.. All other languages contributed less than 1%
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
gennaro 

 Well - if you have any ideas, pray tell ;)
Eh?

 "I can't remember"?
Stesso discorso di prima.
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
--
"A good idea is a good idea forever" (The Office).
[My Skype nickname: enrico_il_pentolaio ] 

 Eh?
It means "(I) pray (you), (do) tell!
It's one of those expressions. :)
Tang

> "I can't remember"?
Hai dimenticato questi :-)
Li giustifico io: E' vero, quando ti insegnano l'inglese ti dicono che, 
a differenza dell'italiano, in inglese il soggetto non si puo' mai 
sottointendere.
Non e' vero. O meglio, e' verissimo per la lingua scritta, ma in quella 
parlata spesso si sottointende proprio come in italiano.
-- 
Laz - [
http://www.dimensionedelta.net
]
"You're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!" 

 parlata spesso si sottointende proprio come in italiano.
Esatto.
Tang.:)

 "I can't remember"?
Read my tag-line.
Bye, FB
-- 
"It is not idiocy, father, I assure you." "What is it then, sir?" "Well, it
is what is called nowadays a high moral tone, father. That is all." "Hate
these new-fangled names. Same thing as we used to call idiocy fifty years
ago. Shan't stay in this house any longer."
("An Ideal Husband", Oscar Wilde)