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Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

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Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#41

Post by murbard2 »

pash wrote: post #35
Nursie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> French uses a wider vocabulary than English This seems an extraordinary claim, given that English is generally considered to have the largest number of words of any modern language (mostly because we just steal them).

Word-use is roughly Zipf-distributed [0] in most all modern languages, so there's not much difference in the number of commonly used words (as long as you ignore basic differences like the existence of articles and the richness of word inflection). An analysis of English and French texts on Project Gutenburg shows that 93 words account for half of English usage, versus 89 for French [1]. English has fewer words in th…

> 14,736 versus 21,231 at 95%

So about 50% more words for French. The very extreme tail is less interesting because it captures the size of the dictionary, and words very rarely used.

I think the exponent of the tail would be the most relevant metric, but I can't open those pdf. Can someone plot the inverse CDF and make a log-log plot?

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#42

Post by frenchenglish »

murbard2 wrote: post #27

I'm a native French speaker and fluent in English (and of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to stick grammar mistakes in this post) Some have pointed out that French is almost always longer. It's a bit more complicated than that. French uses a wider vocabulary than English, and uses many different words to convey different connotations. Words, as a result, tend to be longer, because they carry more information…

I'm also a native French speaker, but I'm bilingual ( British mother ).

French definitely neither has nor uses a wider vocabulary than English, if only because English keeps growing while modern French stopped evolving a while ago. The only kind of French which does evolve is spoken French, which bears little resemblance to written French nowadays.

Now, for some reason, there's a widely propagated myth in France which is that English in particular is a very poor language : English is supposed to have a very limited vocabulary, and no possibility to express subtle ideas accurately. I have no idea where this myth comes from - maybe the old French-English rivalry - , but I guess it is the source of your belief.

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#43

Post by murbard2 »

frenchenglish wrote: post #42
murbard2 wrote: post #27

I'm a native French speaker and fluent in English (and of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to stick grammar mistakes in this post) Some have pointed out that French is almost always longer. It's a bit more complicated than that. French uses a wider vocabulary than English, and uses many different words to convey different connotations. Words, as a result, tend to be longer, because they carry more information…

I'm also a native French speaker, but I'm bilingual ( British mother ). French definitely neither has nor uses a wider vocabulary than English, if only because English keeps growing while modern French stopped evolving a while ago. The only kind of French which does evolve is spoken French, which bears little resemblance to written French nowadays. Now, for some reason, there's a widely propagated myth in France whic…

What do you make of the statistics quoted below which shows that, at the 95th percentile, French uses 50% more words than English?

Compare http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_english.shtml and http://www.eupedia.com/europe/missing_words_french.shtml I see many errors in the second list, do you see many in the first?

I do not consider English a poor language at all. I find it extremely flexible and expressive, whereas French just comes with a very large standard library.

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#44

Post by shutupalready »

murbard2 wrote: post #27

I'm a native French speaker and fluent in English (and of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to stick grammar mistakes in this post) Some have pointed out that French is almost always longer. It's a bit more complicated than that. French uses a wider vocabulary than English, and uses many different words to convey different connotations. Words, as a result, tend to be longer, because they carry more information…

> When conveying nuanced ideas, I believe they will be much closer in length, with perhaps a small advantage for French.

I've looked in bookstores at expert translations of French novels to English, and English novels to French, and in either case, the English is shorter. This seems contrary to your claim.

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#45

Post by murbard2 »

shutupalready wrote: post #44
murbard2 wrote: post #27

I'm a native French speaker and fluent in English (and of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to stick grammar mistakes in this post) Some have pointed out that French is almost always longer. It's a bit more complicated than that. French uses a wider vocabulary than English, and uses many different words to convey different connotations. Words, as a result, tend to be longer, because they carry more information…

> When conveying nuanced ideas, I believe they will be much closer in length, with perhaps a small advantage for French. I've looked in bookstores at expert translations of French novels to English, and English novels to French, and in either case, the English is shorter. This seems contrary to your claim.

1) It could be the translator's choice to drop a connotation rather than go through a cumbersome periphrasis to express it faithfully.

2) English words tend to be much shorter, which is reflected in the book's length.

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#46

Post by barrkel »

murbard2 wrote: post #37
zizee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a point, having more words in a dictionary does not necessarily result in the average person using more words in their communication. I would think that education/environment would have a bigger effect. That said, I would interested if the grandparent could provide more info supporting their statement, as I don't know the truth one way or the other and would like to know more.

This is mostly based on my own observations, I don't have a very specific study on the matter. Here's a data point though. Many French students learn in English class, as an anecdote, that "shallow" has no equivalent in French. If there were many other words like this, there would be little point in relating this anecdote. "Shallow" is one of the very few words in English with no French equivalent. French words with…

English is a bit more subtle. It has inherited a lot of French vocabulary from the Normans, as well as retaining Anglo-Saxon roots. So it often has more words for things other languages have fewer words for, with English having more shades of meaning.

Take happy for example: joyous, joyful, gay, merry, gleeful, etc. I counted some 50 words in the thesaurus under happy, but many of them only translate to joyeaux or gai according to my dictionary checks (although there are also plenty for French, not as many).

English tends to have a lot of words that are close synonyms but with different evocations. It's possible to converse English in language almost completely of French origin, or speak plainly in the common tongue with older words. The former sounds flowery; the latter tends to remind one of the Bible.

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#47

Post by murbard2 »

barrkel wrote: post #46
murbard2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly based on my own observations, I don't have a very specific study on the matter. Here's a data point though. Many French students learn in English class, as an anecdote, that "shallow" has no equivalent in French. If there were many other words like this, there would be little point in relating this anecdote. "Shallow" is one of the very few words in English with no French equivalent. French words with…

English is a bit more subtle. It has inherited a lot of French vocabulary from the Normans, as well as retaining Anglo-Saxon roots. So it often has more words for things other languages have fewer words for, with English having more shades of meaning. Take happy for example: joyous, joyful, gay, merry, gleeful, etc. I counted some 50 words in the thesaurus under happy, but many of them only translate to joyeaux or ga…

http://www.synonymo.fr/synonyme/heureux

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#48

Post by omonra »

pcrh wrote: post #40
omonra wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? What % of the English do you think will understand this (random start of first Shakespeare play that popped into my head): If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 'Ti…

Which words in that passage are not easily understandable? The most "obscure" one that I can identify is "notwithstanding" (Google gives 48,000,000 results for "notwithstanding", so it is not exactly an obscure word). A failure to understand that passage is a failure of comprehension, not of vocabulary.

You're talking about something else - individual words (at least in this passage) are certainly known to everybody.

But what % of English speakers do you think can understand the passage?

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#49

Post by DanBC »

pcrh wrote: post #38
omonra wrote: post #34

Wouldn't analysis of top 3 contemporary newspapers / magazines in each language yield a more accurate result? Ie if Dickens or Melville used certain words in their writing - if modern speakers don't know them, we can't really use them to gauge how many words English speakers use today . I, for one, simply can't read Shakespeare - most of his vocabulary (anybody knows what a 'bodkin' is?) sounds foreign to me. And I s…

Most of Shakespeare's language is accessible to English speakers in England, Ireland, Australia, etc. There might be a few word here or there that are not widely understood ("bodkin" is not one of these, its meaning is generally known in the UK). However, American English, especially as is daily spoken in the more ethnically diverse areas of the US has a much reduced vocabulary due to the need to accommodate non-nati…

> There might be a few word here or there that are not widely understood ("bodkin" is not one of these, its meaning is generally known in the UK

This is wrong, most people in the UK don't know what a bodkin is. Many people would think it an item of clothing or something to do with alcohol.

About 16% of working age adults in the UK are functionally illiterate http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/adult_literacy/illiterate_ad... (have less literacy than is expected of an 11 year old child). http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jan/24/books.politics

The average reading age in the UK is that of a 9 year old child. http://s-i-w.com/library/faqs/readability/what-average-readi... (although he doesn't give a source for this and it seems a bit low, even to me)

Re: Do the English Use More Words Than the French?

#50

Post by pcrh »

omonra wrote: post #48
pcrh wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which words in that passage are not easily understandable? The most "obscure" one that I can identify is "notwithstanding" (Google gives 48,000,000 results for "notwithstanding", so it is not exactly an obscure word). A failure to understand that passage is a failure of comprehension, not of vocabulary.

You're talking about something else - individual words (at least in this passage) are certainly known to everybody. But what % of English speakers do you think can understand the passage?

Understanding the English-speaking world's most famous poet and playwriter might be beyond the abilities of some people, that is for sure. It doesn't mean, though, that the language used is deliberately obscure.

I would estimate that most high school graduates in the UK could correctly parse the passage posted, given enough time.

Those with education specifically in English would parse it at first pass.

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