LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.09.24 (02) [E]

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2005.09.23 (10) [A]

Mark wrote:
> moderne Engels. Weliswaar, Moderne Engels het die grootste woordeskat van
> alle tale ter Wëreld, maar hoor nou mooi vir die algewone enkeltalige
> Engelsman, en jy hoor hoe maak hulle inteendeel staat op die kleinste
> werkende woordeskat as enige ander enkeltalige in sy eie taal.

Are you sure? I heard that German had the largest vocabulary, due to all
those composite nouns and verbs, while English is a lot more limited in that
respect.

Just wondering,
Gabriele Kahn

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Hi, Gabriele!

>  heard that German had the largest vocabulary

I grew up being told the same, also that "German is the most difficult 
language in the world," ... apart from being told in every country I have 
lived in that it is the best and luckiest country on earth ...  I'm now old 
and experienced enough to take any such claim with a truckload of salt.

> due to all
> those composite nouns and verbs, while English is a lot more limited in 
> that
> respect.

A composite word is a composite word, and its written representation has no 
bearing on this at all (though it indicates how early writers perceived a 
word).  German, like many other languages, happens to write a composite word 
as one word, namely without a space in between components.  English -- being 
a notorious orthographic jumble -- does so sometimes (e.g., "evensong," 
"bedroom," "boatswain," "Freemason," "underbrush," "overcome," "undergo," 
"undertake" -- in some cases even truly separate words; e.g., 
"notwithstanding," "nevertheless") but usually not, and these days the use 
of the hyphen and the space depends on dialects in many cases (e.g., 
"drawing-room" ~ "drawing room").  In most cases, however, the components 
are written separately.

On the lexical level -- irrespective of spelling -- composite words are 
registered as discrete lexical items.  In other words, for instance "bed" 
and "four-poster bed" are semantically related but lexically discrete items, 
just as German _Bett_ and _Himmelbett_ are.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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