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How many words does the Polish language have?


posts: 17

smurfThreads: 46
Posts: 660
Joined: Sep 8, 09 ♂ 		 Jul 27, 11, 20:28    #1
Hi,

very quick question, I'm researching an article on the amount of words in the English and Polish languages.....
English is said to have over 1,000,000 words, how many words does the Polish language have?

Lowest number I've seen in 60,000, highest was 160,000, it's got to be more than that, is it?

Cheers
mafketisThreads: 17
Posts: 1,880
Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂ 		Edited by: mafketis  Jul 27, 11, 20:51    #2
I'm mostly not posting here now (for mod reasons) but as a linguist I can't resist:

This is a pointless question for many reasons, including but not limited to:

- there's no real valild cross linguistic definition of 'word' (that is, you have to define word by language)

- there's no established way of 'counting' how many words are in a given language

- in the English tradition, once a word makes it into a dictionary it's there forever even if no one has actually used it for decades (or centuries) the English word count is boosted by thousands and thousands of words that almost no native speaker would recognize or be able to use. Most other European languages don't do that and treat obsolete words as .... osbsolete rather than as going concerns.

What you can say is that Polish and English work differently which is going to influence what dictinaries look like and word counts. For one thing, derivational processes (making new words from old ones) are usually less ambiguous in Polish so lots of potential words don't have to be listed in the dictionary. In English derivational processes are more unpredictable which means you need a lot more separate entries.

This is also reflected in spelling where English words have to be learned one by one whereas Polish depends more on general rules.

In some ways, for the very advanced learner, this makes Polish easier than English. While reading newspapers or books, I'm always coming across new words (for me) in Polish that are completely understandable in context. Even native speakers can find this difficult to do in English (less common with individual words but unfamiliar collocations with idiomatic meanings can throw me in English. I remember coming across 'belt up' in something British and it made no sense at all to me and I only learned what it meant when it came up again in a context where the meaning (shut up) was clearer.
smurfThreads: 46
Posts: 660
Joined: Sep 8, 09 ♂ 		 Jul 27, 11, 22:28    #3
but as a linguist I can't resist:

a cunning one no doubt :P


This is a pointless question for many reasons, including but not limited to:

is anyone on this forum ever helpful......?
I'm just looking for an estimate

ffs I'm not looking for your life story or a kurwa thesis on the lexicon regarding the complexity of the intricities of the language. Lighten up man, smile.

I've trawled the internet and the lowest number I got was 60,000, the highest was 160,000....one did say 350,000 but that was when you figure in all the changes that are applied to root words because of the nasty grammar rules in the Polish lingo.
ShortHairThugThreads: -
Posts: 1,374
Joined: May 1, 09 ♂ 		 Jul 27, 11, 22:48    #4
one did say 350,000 but that was when you figure in all the changes that are applied to root words because of the nasty grammar rules in the Polish lingo.

What’s your problem? Kurwa maæ!! That’s the beauty of the Polish dictionary; you look up the root word, no need to put every single one in the dictionary. That’s why people constantly ask that dumb question, what does that word mean? I can’t find it in the dictionary. If you know the root you can pretty much figure out the meaning but you won’t find it by looking it up unless you know the root.
f stopThreads: 33
Posts: 2,861
Joined: Dec 9, 09  Pictures: 1 ♀ 		 Jul 27, 11, 22:49    #5
or a kurwa thesis on the lexicon regarding the complexity

lol

Root words only, or all the weird-ass permutations count as separate words too?
SeanBMThreads: 41
Posts: 8,727
Joined: Mar 10, 08 ♂ 		 Jul 27, 11, 22:49    #6
How many words does the Polish language have?
Only two:
Kurwa maæ!!
mafketisThreads: 17
Posts: 1,880
Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂ 		 Jul 27, 11, 23:17    #7
is anyone on this forum ever helpful......?


No. Sorry for muddling your head with a few facts. It won't happen again. I'll be helpful now and let you know, the Polish language has exactly 236,817 words, not a word more or less.
Monia  Jul 27, 11, 23:23    #8
the Polish language has exactly 236,817 words, not a word more or less.



not counting many varieties of cases or diminutives I guess
smurfThreads: 46
Posts: 660
Joined: Sep 8, 09 ♂ 		 Jul 28, 11, 08:37    #9
Root words only

yep, just those.

the Polish language has exactly 236,817

excellent, much obliged, that wasn't so difficult now was it?

If you know the root you can pretty much figure out the meaning but you won’t find it by looking it up unless you know the root.

Helpful, thanks, I'll remember that.

But I don't understand how kot, kotek and kotku aren't all different words in the dictionary, I know, I know the root of the word is kot, but as they have different uses (and slightly different meanings) then I don't really get why they aren't treated as different words.
However, it's not my language, I'm just trying to learn it, so it's really a moot point and it doesn't matter that I don't understand it I just have to learn them and remember them.

Cheers
SeanusThreads: 22
Posts: 30,158
Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂ 		 Jul 28, 11, 10:14    #10
236, 816 wasn't it? ;) ;) I'm sure one word has become obsolete in that time.
SzwedwPolsceThreads: 13
Posts: 1,915
Joined: Feb 21, 09 ♂ 		 Jul 28, 11, 11:58    #11
It is scientifically accepted that it is impossible to determine exactly how many different words you can find in a language.
smurfThreads: 46
Posts: 660
Joined: Sep 8, 09 ♂ 		 Jul 28, 11, 12:06    #12
it is impossible to determine exactly how many different words you can find in a language.

writing in bold does not make what you write any more important :P

anyway you're wrong,
check it
http://www.languagemonitor.com/global-english/number-of-words-in-the-e nglish-language-1008879/
MagdalenaThreads: 5
Posts: 1,389
Joined: Aug 15, 07 ♀ 		 Jul 28, 11, 12:32    #13
anyway you're wrong


Did you miss the word "estimate" in the article? ;-p
SeanusThreads: 22
Posts: 30,158
Joined: Dec 25, 07 ♂ 		 Jul 28, 11, 12:35    #14
Language is in a constant state of flux and you can't ascertain to any precise extent the number of words at any one time. For example, to what extent do you count incorporated words? How valid are dialectal words? You see where I'm going with this?
mafketisThreads: 17
Posts: 1,880
Joined: Mar 31, 08 ♂ 		 Jul 28, 11, 14:13    #15
Here's a post from language log (written by professional linguists) with links to even more posts about the futility and fatuousness of people trying to say how many words are in a language.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2363


I don't understand how kot, kotek and kotku aren't all different words in the dictionary


The root is kot, which is enough for a fluent (or even semi-fluent) user to generate the rest.

Kotek is a perfectly regular diminutive ending, kot = cat, kotek = kitty (roughly)

As for kotek and kotku, why aren't sing and sings different words in the dictionary?

Kotku is just the vocative (and locative) case of kotek. Again, 100% regular.

While beginning (and intermediate) learners of Polish might feel overwhelmed by the irregularities, the advanced learner is hardly ever bothered. Polish is overall much more regular than irregular.

With English it works in reverse, easy in the beginning and the steepest learning curves are for the most advanced students.
strzygaThreads: 4
Posts: 986
Joined: Apr 30, 08 ♀ 		 Jul 28, 11, 14:35    #16
But I don't understand how kot, kotek and kotku aren't all different words in the dictionary, I know, I know the root of the word is kot, but as they have different uses (and slightly different meanings) then I don't really get why they aren't treated as different words.


ok, so the dictionary I use most often has almost 133 000 entries. now, let's multiply that by 30 (14 cases for Sing and Pl combined for nouns and adjectives, plus diminutives - at least 3 are possible for each of the above, as for verbs - 6 persons x 3 tenses x 2 versions for animate and inanimate, minus prepositions and adverbs which only have 1-3 forms each, plus all the obsolete and specialist terms that my dictionary doesn't include). It's just an estimation, but the count comes to about half a million, and that's your number.
Monia  Jul 28, 11, 15:18    #17
It will make more than 7 millions of different words if counting all forms of words ( declensions , conjugations , diminutives ) we use in Polish language, the same as you do in English by counting words, which have different meanings just by adding prepositions .


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