Number of Words in the English Language:
Today, more than 750 million people use the English language. An average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 words in a week. Despite its widespread use, there are only about 350 million people who use it as their mother tongue. It is the official language of the Olympics. More than half of the world's technical and scientific periodicals as well three quarters of the world's mail, and its telexes and cables are in English. About 80% of the information stored in the world's computers (such as this text) are also in English. English is also transmitted to more than 100 million people everyday by 5 of the largest broadcasting companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC). It seems like English will remain the most widely used language for some time.
-- Johnny Ling 2001
Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.
Very interesting statistic to know.
Person knows about 20,000 words.
Only 3,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 five word sentences.
Most don't make any sense.
There is something about language.
I'm sure we can't communicate.
John.
Heh, I cheated by using numbers didn't I? :)
Actually, what is even more amazing is the small number of people that exist that are available for communication..
John.