How Many English Words Do You Know?

Last Friday I took part in a game of ‘Call My Bluff’. For those readers who don’t know the rules, the object of the game is to guess the correct definition of an obscure word from the three or four different ones given to you by another team.

Although I work with words professionally on a daily basis, I was surprised to find that even I’d never heard of any of the words used in the game. Mind you, the English language is renowned for the richness of its vocabulary. The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 600,000 different words and their definitions, and technical or scientific terms can add millions more to the total. Altogether, there are about 200,000 English words in common use whereas an average well-read educated person can have a total vocabulary of between 15,000 to 20,000 words, and only use about 1,500 of them in a normal week. So it is not surprising that such words as ‘laroid’, ‘lagan’ or ‘xebec’ are totally unknown to most people.

What is particularly interesting is that, despite being rather complex to learn and difficult to master, English is probably the most widely spoken language in the world. Approximately 375 million people speak it as a first language and up to 1,400 million more speak it as a second language. English is the dominant international language in aviation, business, communications, diplomacy, entertainment and science and is an official language in 53 different countries. And what is even more interesting is that each of these countries has its own version of English. We all know about the differences between American (US) English and British English, but what about Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, Caribbean English and South African English – all of which merit having their own specialized dictionary being published by the Oxford University Press. And then there is Indian English (the bain of all those British people who hate being put through to certain telephone call centres!), Malaysian English and Chinese English. Professor David Crystal, who specializes in linguistics, has claimed that if you combine native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world. India is closely followed in this respect by the People’s Republic of China.

Coming closer to home, there is Scottish English, Welsh English and Irish English. Each region of England itself has its own dialect and even the Isle of Man and Guernsey have their own form of the language. So, you could say that there is no officially correct form of English – not even the ‘Queen’s English’ (after all, her family originally came from Germany and her husband is Greek!) – but this is probably the reason for its beauty, its flexibility and its attraction. Long may it continue!

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