English set a record, the first among other languages having registered a million words.
The millionth word became Web 2. 0, meaning new generation of interactive products and services of the Internet which arrive on the computer in an operating time in the WorldNet. It was required to English one and a half thousand years to set up the record.
Calculation of quantity of words in the basic languages is conducted by the Californian Company Global Language Monitor or GLM. It carries out monitoring of occurrence and the use of words in printing and electronic mass-media, analyzes the Internet, revealing new words and establishing quantity and context of their use.
To be accepted as a word of English language, it should appear in various texts at least 25 thousand times.
In the beginning of June GLM declared that the quantity of words in the English language has reached one million. Any other language has no so volume lexicon.
As experts consider, for daily use the person uses from 2 to 5 thousand words.
As a result hardly probable in the world there is a person who knows and uses one million words. By the way, Shakespeare in his writings used 24 thousand words, thus he has thought up 1, 7 thousand from them.
It is interesting that the term concerning the newest Internet technologies became the millionth word. However not all experts agree with GLM concept which they characterize as “liberal”. So, the company has included in the dictionary of English language such words as Clingfish, that means language with the mixed English-Chinese expressions, computer slang and the words, used in the Internet for a designation of new realities.
According to calculations of British linguists, still 50 years ago 250 million persons in the world spoke English. Today this number has reached a 1.5 billion.
