Maybe you’re happy today. Or cheerful, or joyful, or giddy. All those words pretty much mean “happy.” So how many words are there in the world? Well, Merriam-Webster dictionary says English alone has about 1 million words. But how do we count words? “Square” can mean “4-sided shape,” or “complete” (a square meal), or “uncool” (it’s hip to be square). or 21 other different things…but do those count as 24 words or just 1? Now multiply all that by the 700+ major world languages!
Wee ones: If you say “I am really happy today,” how many words do you say?
Little kids: If you say “I am really, really hungry,” how many different words do you say? Bonus: If you add on 3 more reallys, how many words have you said in total?
Big kids: We say about 5,000 words a day. If you made sure they were all different, how many could you say in a 2-day weekend? Bonus: 700 out of the 7,000 languages are spoken by at least 100,000 people. How many languages are spoken by fewer? (Hint if needed: Think of 7,000 as “70 hundred.”)
The sky’s the limit: If you’re trying to learn all 1 million (1,000,000) English words and you’ve learned all but 1, how many words have you learned?
Answers:
Wee ones: 5 words.
Little kids: 4 unique words: I, am, really, hungry. Bonus: 8 words, since you said 5 words in total before.
Big kids: 10,000 words. Bonus: 6,300 languages.
The sky’s the limit: 999,999 words.
