II.

Vocabulary

The English vocabulary has changed continually over more than 1,500 years of development. The most nearly complete dictionary of the language, the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 20 volumes, 1989), contains more than 600,000 words, including obsolete forms and variant spellings. It has been estimated, however, that the present English vocabulary consists of more than 1 million words, including slang and dialect expressions and scientific and technical terms, many of which only came into use after the middle of the 20th century. The English vocabulary is more extensive than that of any other language in the world, although some other languages—Chinese, for example—have a word-building capacity equal to that of English.

Internal processes have led to the creation of many new words as well as to the establishment of patterns for further expansion. For example, the process of onomatopoeia, or the imitation of natural sounds, has created such words as burp and beeper. Affixation, or the addition of prefixes and suffixes, such as mis-, ex-, -ness, and –ist, has given English such words as mislead, exchange, forgetfulness, and machinist. The process of combining or blending parts of words produces new words such as in brunch, composed of parts of breakfast and lunch. The formation of compounds yields such words as lighthouse and downpour. Back formation, or the formation of new words from previously existing words, suggests that the verb jell, for example, was formed from jelly. Functional extension, or the use of one part of speech as if it were another, for example, turned the noun shower into a new verb, to shower. The processes that have probably added the largest number of words to English are affixation and functional extension.

Throughout its history English has come into contact with a great number of languages. Extensive, constant borrowing from every major language—especially from Latin, Greek, French, and the Scandinavian languages—has also provided numerous words. From Latin, English has taken the words cheese, street, campanile, and exodus. From French, it has taken café, lingerie, envelope, and avalanche. Borrowings from Scandinavian languages include the words sky, egg, sister, birth, and smorgasbord. From Spanish have come the words pueblo, guacamole, fajita, and macho. The languages of India have given English the words chutney, bungalow, pajamas, amok, and polo (see Indian Languages). Native American languages have provided chipmunk, moccasin, tipi (also spelled teepee), skunk, squash, and quinine. From languages of the Pacific, English has taken sarong, ketchup, koala, and kiwi. From Japanese have come hibachi, sushi, bonsai, and origami.