A million English words, or only 600,000? Either way, it's a language packed with more words than you'll ever need

[LanDi Liu]

On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 1:15 AM, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:
> If only literates could coin words, then how could language develop
> before literacy? Oh wait, maybe it didn't.  Words are slippery things
> to count; new words slipperier; words on their way out slipperiest?
>
> D

I don't think only literates can coin words, but I think they'd be
more likely to, especially in England in the 1590s.  Also, in that
time, if illiterates coined words, they would be much less likely to
be recorded.

Randy
>
>
> On Jul 9, 2008, at 9:45 AM, LanDi Liu wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: A million English words, or only 600,000? Either
>> way, it's a
>>              language packed with more words than you'll ever need
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>> And one could point out how much more linguistic the 1590s were by
>>> dividing the times per word by the number of English speakers in the
>>> two periods.
>>>
>>> Joel
>>
>> Especially if one only counted literate speakers.  One might assume
>> the unwashed masses weren't coining too many words.
>>
>> --
>> Randy Alexander
>> Jilin City, China
>> My Manchu studies blog:
>> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org