Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
filipwolanski.com
Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#2A model of presentation of data. Its clarity belies the variety of techniques used. Perfect use of word clouds. Thank you.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#3I notice that four of the seven authors with the smallest vocabulary are writing theater (Moliere, Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille). I think it's not a coincidence, because writing in rhymes must be a hard constraint in the choice of words one can use.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#4That's a surprising result.
My previous view was that English vocabulary is based on Germanic as well as Latin roots, and so there there are often two terms with the same meaning, one which is subtly different in usage than the other. In contrast, French vocabulary is mostly Latin in origin.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#5Oui.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#6A model of presentation of data. Its clarity belies the variety of techniques used. Perfect use of word clouds. Thank you.
I have to strongly, strongly disagree. There is no "perfect use" of word clouds in the context of proper data visualization. The arrangement and colorization of the words are virtually on account of randomization (and the sizing of words based on frequency is of dubious value, given how difficult it is for the human eye to evaluate the size comparison)...this randomness is anathema to the proper presentation of data... the variability in interpretation is vast, and depends on each viewer's ability to see colors and read vertically.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#7I notice that four of the seven authors with the smallest vocabulary are writing theater (Moliere, Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille). I think it's not a coincidence, because writing in rhymes must be a hard constraint in the choice of words one can use.
A keen observation, and Wilde really makes it four and a half.
But Shakespeare wrote mostly blank verse, and rhyming is not as much of a constraint on vocabulary in French due to the high commonality of word endings. If it's true that works for the stage tend to use fewer words, it might be because dialogue dominates; I imagine narrative, which consists more of description, naturally draws on a bigger vocabulary than even very stylized dialogue.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#8I notice that four of the seven authors with the smallest vocabulary are writing theater (Moliere, Shakespeare, Racine, Corneille). I think it's not a coincidence, because writing in rhymes must be a hard constraint in the choice of words one can use.
Rhyming is part of the problem. Playwrights' work has to be remembered by the actors by heart.
Also, the ones you mentioned lived in the 16th century, when languages were not very sophisticated.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#9That's a surprising result. My previous view was that English vocabulary is based on Germanic as well as Latin roots, and so there there are often two terms with the same meaning, one which is subtly different in usage than the other. In contrast, French vocabulary is mostly Latin in origin.
Just because more words exist, does not mean the authors make use of these words. I think the author would agree that English has more words - he cites the dictionary sizes skewing heavily in favor of English.
With that said, I am also surprised. I would like to see a similar analysis using more modern works, as well as a discussion around how texts are selected. It seems like the selection of authors and their novels will significantly impact the results.
FWIW - Both English and French stem from the same original language (Proto-Indo-European). You are correct that English is a Germanic language (this does not mean it stems from German), and the French is a Romance language - with Romance being used in the sense of "came from Rome," not "sounds sexy." If you are interested in more details here, I highly recommend "The History of English" podcast: http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/ I'm still working my way through it, but it does a great job explaining the history of the English language, how it evolved, how it relates to other languages, etc.
English contains words from many other languages. It is not just Latin words, but many more recent languages (such as French) as well.
Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?
#10That's a surprising result. My previous view was that English vocabulary is based on Germanic as well as Latin roots, and so there there are often two terms with the same meaning, one which is subtly different in usage than the other. In contrast, French vocabulary is mostly Latin in origin.
Just because more words exist, does not mean the authors make use of these words. I think the author would agree that English has more words - he cites the dictionary sizes skewing heavily in favor of English. With that said, I am also surprised. I would like to see a similar analysis using more modern works, as well as a discussion around how texts are selected. It seems like the selection of authors and their novel…
Wow! That podcast seems awesome. Thanks a lot. This will be my bed time listening for a while.