Which Language Has The Most Words?

I don't know, but give you some information I knew. A chinese dictionary compiled and printed in the Qing dynasty in 1908, which was edited for several times, until the version in 1988 it explains up to 12,000,000(12 million)words.

I think your question is probably not possible to anwser.

NEver thought of it for even the English words we have here have differnt accents to go by and they to are spelt some different!

leonelaphotography has already given a great answer to this question but as additional information I add. A graduate of a British university may have a personal vocabulary in excess of the total vocabulary of some languages!!! No wonder we British find it hard to learn foreign tongues. all the best urban

I heard it on a radio show that at present English has more than 600,000 words. wow, that's a huge amount comparing to Chinese. Chinese has about just 60,000 words. the reason is English and words of most of the language around the world are formed by putting letters together and a word can have many variation while Chinese words is not. Chinese words is also called Chinese characters. to those who don't read Chinese, they are pictures. to Chinese, a character has no variation. while I have no idea which language has most words, I perceive Chinese probably the language with least words.

I guess it is portuguese.

While I'm not absolutely positive, I would think English would have more words. Sometimes when looking up a word in the dictionary, you will find several other words that have the exact same meaning, with only little nuances of difference to them. Take the simple word 'sell' for example, there's hawk, pander,dispose, transfer, cheat, deceive, or offer. There's probably a few that I missed, but they all can be interchanged with the word sell in different contexts of the word and sentence they're in. I don't know lots about other languages. My own complete dictionary is 6" thick, and the print is tiny, so I'm still thinking it would be English that has the most words. Good discussion...it's something that is not usually thought about (unless you're learning English or another foreign language lol)

From my little knowledge , should be TAMIL or ARAB lol

Hello my friend gtargirl Ji, I think , it is very much controversial topic, but as English is maximum spoken language aroiund the globe, and bec ause of its adoptibility nature, it may be armed with more words. I bring out following from the web: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/389075 [b]"Trading languages have bigger vocabularies than insular languages. English is a good example of a trading language. It is basically Anglo-Saxon in grammar and vocabulary, but has absorbed over half its vocabulary via Latin based languages (such as Latin itself, French, Italian and Spanish). Through its mercantile and eventual colonial links, it has absorbed vocabulary from all over the world. I would hazard a guess that English would have one of the largest, if not the largest vocabulary, as it has never had a central body regulating its vocabulary (as has had French). ANother language with an enormous vocabulary is Malay/Indonesian. Like English, it was a trading language, used , in medieval times, from Indonesia to China, and to the Middle East. It is basically an Austronesian language, but, because of the religous and cultural history of the islands, has absorbed large amounts of vocabulary from Sanskrit, Tamil, ARabic/Persian, Dutch, and English. Because of the hundreds of regional languages in the islands, Indonesian has also absorbed regional vocabulary."[/b] May God bless you and have a great time.

I would guess that English has the most words, as it is continually adapting and melding new words together. Also if you include the older varients of it there would be several million words to go through. Slang dialects just in the Uk add a vast number of words too.

I'm not sure about words, but as far as letters go, Chinese and Japanese have a whole truckful of letters (or however they're called in those languages).

oh....I guess English is the answer.Not sure.But,I am quite sure Modern Chinese is the language has the least words

I think you're right but what about Arabic..hmm

Japanese for sure. Just look at all the kanji characters you have to master. In English you can use 1 word for 6 different situations. In Japanese you have to use a different word for each situation. The word work for example is a classic. Go figure.

Trading languages have bigger vocabularies than insular languages. English is a good example of a trading language. It is basically Anglo-Saxon in grammar and vocabulary, but has absorbed over half its vocabulary via Latin based languages (such as Latin itself, French, Italian and Spanish). Through its mercantile and eventual colonial links, it has absorbed vocabulary from all over the world. I would hazard a guess that English would have one of the largest, if not the largest vocabulary, as it has never had a central body regulating its vocabulary (as has had French). ANother language with an enormous vocabulary is Malay/Indonesian. Like English, it was a trading language, used , in medieval times, from Indonesia to China, and to the Middle East. It is basically an Austronesian language, but, because of the religous and cultural history of the islands, has absorbed large amounts of vocabulary from Sanskrit, Tamil, ARabic/Persian, Dutch, and English. Because of the hundreds of regional languages in the islands, Indonesian has also absorbed regional vocabulary. http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/lang/vocab.html discusses the topic This site: http://members.aol.com/DrHumph/funetik.htm suggests that English has the largest vocabulary, over three times as large as other languages.

Almost all languages have approximately the same total number of words (several hundred thousand), so that really doesn't mean anything. The N. American Eskimos have over 200 words meaning snow, but very few verbs and other nouns. Russians have no word for "a", "an", "the" and many other articles.

English has the most amount of words than any other language. This is because unlike most languages, English has absorbed more words from other languages than any other language. Though hundreds of years, English has absorbed Germanic words from German, Old Saxon, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. And has absorbed Romance words from Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. There are many other words from almost every language in the world added to the English language. Giving the English language the ablility to say anything in at least 2 or 3 different ways, not using the same words. Due to the fact English has many words that are different but mean the same, because they are taken from different languages but have the same meaning. But English does have words which are not from any other language, which were created in the Evolution of the English language. English has over 900,000 words.