# Does English have unusually large number of synonyms? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 24, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622 "2017-11-24T20:34:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/21 "2017-11-25T20:45:41Z")
Surely, assuming we can work out a method as well as what it is exactly we are trying to measure, we should be able to run statistical tests against corpora of texts in several languages and do better at estimating the prevalence of synonyms than by counting the number of entries in a dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/22 "2017-11-25T20:50:58Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Given that there are over 1.2 million named species, that couldn’t account for it. Just quoting the link. 🙂 Anyway plausible explanations for how one could get a count of English words 4+ times as many as the OED would not include the OED being missing lots of remotely common, independent words. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/23 "2017-11-25T20:56:42Z")
Well, all that really matters is that you compare like to like, so if you’re counting Linnean binomials in English, then you need to count them in all other languages, too, and if you’re not counting them in one language, you can’t count them in any. I’m inclined, though, to include them in all, because there are other loanwords that have been adopted into many but not all languages, and we clearly have to count those. It doesn’t seem right to treat a word found in almost all languages radically differently from a word found in absolutely all languages. And is it even true that Linnean binomials are found in all languages? At the low end, there are some languages out there from almost-uncontacted tribes or the like with very few words, and speakers of those languages would not use those words at all (though they probably do have words for those organisms that occur locally to them). ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/24 "2017-11-25T21:04:06Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Surely, assuming we can work out a method as well as what it is exactly we are trying to measure, we should be able to run statistical tests against corpora of texts in several languages and do better at estimating the prevalence of synonyms than by counting the number of entries in a dictionary. I was just responding to the predicate ‘English certainly has a larger vocabulary’. It doesn’t seem so, not top anyway, in at all commonly used words. But while I’m sure a project could be done to measure synonyms directly with impressive computer outputs, don’t call me Shirley. What’s a synonym? That’s a judgement call. For example in case of another language with a bigger dictionary than English, Japanese, there’s a cultural affectation among Japanese to call what are basically synonyms in their language ‘exquisitely nuanced differences only we can fully understand’. But often the same words are also used in Korean (ie. same pair of Chinese characters, different pronunciation) and just considered synonyms, either to other Sino Korean words or to indigenous words. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/25 "2017-11-25T21:28:14Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Most of the loan words come from the two invasions(Vikings and Normans), which as county’s histories go is not a huge number of invasions. Well, there was certainly a major one before that, of Roman Legions, who stayed a few hundred years. And then the Roman Hadrian built a Wall to deter additional invasions from the wild savages of Scotland. So I’d say England had more than 2 invasions. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/26 "2017-11-25T21:53:38Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > I was just responding to the predicate ‘English certainly has a larger vocabulary’. It doesn’t seem so, not top anyway, in at all commonly used words. > > But while I’m sure a project could be done to measure synonyms directly with impressive computer outputs, don’t call me Shirley. What’s a synonym? That’s a judgement call. For example in case of another language with a bigger dictionary than English, Japanese, there’s a cultural affectation among Japanese to call what are basically synonyms in their language ‘exquisitely nuanced differences only we can fully understand’. But often the same words are also used in Korean (ie. same pair of Chinese characters, different pronunciation) and just considered synonyms, either to other Sino Korean words or to indigenous words. You make good points and can understand why I wrote “assuming we can work out… what it is exactly we are trying to measure.” While there is a risk of GIGO, the computer analysis should by itself produce a list of synonyms (for instance, by identifying words that can be more or less freely substituted one for another). Ideally, it should even be able to differentiate true synonyms from words distinguished by exquisitely nuanced differences, based on their actual usage in the literature. Assuming Murphy’s Law can be eventually overcome, it would be an expensive yet effective way to answer the OP’s question. In addition, such computational linguistics should be able to settle the question of whether English/Spanish/Korean/Japanese has more “commonly used words” or whether the numbers are roughly the same. Note I am still skirting the issue of defining what counts as a “word”… (note that technical terms like binomial scientific names are not going to show up in common use.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/27 "2017-11-25T22:21:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > … But yeah, with the influence of French, English pretty much became a different language in a few hundred years as what we call Old English because what we call Middle English… IIUC, most scholars concur that the biggest influence on 12th-century English, and thus on the transition from Wessex Old English to London Early Middle English, was _not_ Norman French, but rather the heavily Norsified language of the Danelaw. The influence of (Parisian!) French did not intensify until (paradoxically?) the Norman overlords adopted English as their first language in the early 13th century. The Norman Conquest \*did \*serve as a key _catalyst_ for the development of Early Middle English: The people of South England and the people of the Danelaw were rivals but the Norman conquest made them allies (“my enemy’s enemies are my friends”), so a common language (Early M.E.) arose. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/28 "2017-11-25T22:44:10Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I am not sure either of these are widely used on opposite sides of the atlantic to count as synonyms. In the UK flashlight is not a synonym for torch, it is the American word for torch, that’s not a synonym any more than the French word for torch is a synonym (in the US it might do, as both torch and flashlight are used and have subtley different meanings, electric torch vs actual flaming torch) This would only be true if Americans speak a different (as in mutually unintelligable) language than Britons. What’s the deffinition of synonym? Two different words in the same language with the same or very similiar meaning. Right? So in what way do they not follow that definition? This is no different than if there were words that two different classes of people used for the same thing. It doesn’t have to be upper/lower classes, by the way, it could be military/civilians or scientist/nonscientists, for example. They both (usually) understand what the other says when they use the terms. The only difference would be that there’s no geographical separation. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/29 "2017-11-25T23:03:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > But yeah, with the influence of French, English pretty much became a different language in a few hundred years as what we call Old English because what we call Middle English. Chaucer is at least mostly readable by us modern speakers, but _Beowulf_ is not. Of course, Chaucer was before the so-called Great Vowel shift was complete, so pronunciation is quite different. Beowulf is pretty unintelligible: _Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde_ _LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, awing the earls. Since erst he lay friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, till before him the folk, both far and near, who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate_ ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/30 "2017-11-25T23:09:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Lexically, it is. One could legitimately say that “sapiens” or “melanogaster” is not an English word, but that “Homo sapiens” and “Drosophila melanogaster” are. Again we get into an argument about what constitutes a “word.” But I would disagree, since a scientific name basically includes a noun (genus) and the equivalent of an adjective or other descriptor (specific name). By that argument “Blue Jay” and “Gray Jay” are separate words, since they describe the same entities as _Cyanocitta cristata_ and _Perisoreus canadensis._ In any case, the fact that scientific names are properly written in italics suggests that they constitute “foreign” words. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > But **Colibri’s** larger point is that it doesn’t matter, for the purpose of this discussion. If you’re trying to count words in different languages, you’re better off ignoring species words since they exist as part of every language. Why waste the time? Right. > [@](#): > > And is it even true that Linnean binomials are found in all languages? At the low end, there are some languages out there from almost-uncontacted tribes or the like with very few words, and speakers of those languages would not use those words at all (though they probably do have words for those organisms that occur locally to them). I worked on a bird project in Peru where I had several indigenous assistants, one of whom was already an adult at the time his tribe was contacted. We all called the birds by their Latin names, since that was the name shared by all of us whether we spoke English, Spanish, or Machiguenga. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/31 "2017-11-25T23:30:50Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Beowulf is pretty unintelligible: > _Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, > þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, > hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. > Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, > monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, > egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð > feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, > weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, > oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra > ofer hronrade hyran scolde_ > > _LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings > of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, > we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! > Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes, > from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore, > awing the earls. Since erst he lay > friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him: > for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve, > till before him the folk, both far and near, > who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate_ Is that a translation of Old English into Slightly Less Old English? 🙂 Is the second version supposed to be Middle English? Makes a lot more sense, but still a bit of mind twister. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2017, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/32 "2017-11-25T23:41:32Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > IIUC, most scholars concur that the biggest influence on 12th-century English, and thus on the transition from Wessex Old English to London Early Middle English, was _not_ Norman French, but rather the heavily Norsified language of the Danelaw. The influence of (Parisian!) French did not intensify until (paradoxically?) the Norman overlords adopted English as their first language in the early 13th century. > > The Norman Conquest \*did \*serve as a key _catalyst_ for the development of Early Middle English: The people of South England and the people of the Danelaw were rivals but the Norman conquest made them allies (“my enemy’s enemies are my friends”), so a common language (Early M.E.) arose. That does seem to be more and more commonly attested to these days. But it still depends on how you measure things. There are more borrowed French words in English than there are Norse words. But if you wrote down the text of an everyday conversation and counted up the French and Norse words (counting multiple uses of the same word as multiple instances), then you might end up with more Norse than French. Of course, that might change if you did the analysis on scholarly or legal writing. I’m honestly not up to date on the influence French had on English grammar, but it does seem that the Norse influence was greater. That was, perhaps, because Old English and Old Norse weren’t as mutually unintelligible as Old English and Norman French. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/33 "2017-11-26T00:36:12Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > … There are more borrowed French words in English than there are Norse words… Two points: (a) I wrote specifically about 12th-century Middle English. There was huge borrowing from French in the 13th century and later. (Paradoxically, the intense borrowing began _after_ the Norman nobles became “Englishized.” Recall that the 12th-century King Henry II spent most of his reign in his French domains, but political developments ca 1235 required the Norman nobles to choose between their English and French holdings.) (b) Norse borrowing may be underestimated: Many Middle English words have cognates in _both_ Old English and Old Norse and, by default, these are assigned OE etymologies.) > [@](#): > > That was, perhaps, because Old English and Old Norse weren’t as mutually unintelligible as Old English and Norman French. Old English and Old Norse were not mutually intelligible, but the close typological similarities made bilingualism and structural borrowing easier. Despite that the evolution of English is much studied, the affiliation with Norse remains controversial. A 12th-century Scandinavian source reported that in the early 11th century, “the same language was spoken in England [Danelaw?] as in Norway and Denmark.” This shouldn’t seem surprising — after all, Canute the Great was an 11th-century King of England, Denmark _and_ Norway — yet Sarah Thomason insists that “Norse [in England] probably lasted no more than two generations after 955.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/34 "2017-11-26T00:44:05Z")
**bob++**'s second paragraph is modern English, probably not more than a couple of centuries old. Actual Middle English is only barely intelligible: > [@](#): > > WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote > The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, > And bathed every veyne in swich licour, > Of which vertu engendred is the flour; > Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth > Inspired hath in every holt and heeth > The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne > Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, > And smale fowles maken melodye, > That slepen al the night with open ye, > (So priketh hem nature in hir corages: > Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, > And palmers for to seken straunge strondes, > To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes; > And specially, from every shires ende > Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, > The holy blisful martir for to seke, > That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/35 "2017-11-26T01:02:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **bob++**'s second paragraph is modern English, probably not more than a couple of centuries old. Actual Middle English is only barely intelligible: It’s actually only about 100 years old. But it’s stylized and poetic, which makes it seem older. I was mostly kidding. The newer version doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I think most of us are familiar with the opening lines of _The Canterbury Tales_. It’s not so bad in it’s written form, but much more difficult to understand in the spoken form. Still, the written form looks roughly modern while _Beowulf_ looks at least as foreign as German does. But we should keep in mind that in both cases we are reading poetry, which is not necessarily representative of how the language was spoken by everyday folk. Also, there were many different dialects of Old and Middle English, and we’re only looking at one of each. IIRC, the Chaucer version is what became the prestige dialect leading to Modern English (he was born in London). I don’t know about _Beowulf_, or if it would have made a difference anyway. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/36 "2017-11-26T07:51:17Z")
As a rough test, I ran a list of nine synonyms for “wave” through Google Translate, and eliminated results that were either English cognates or near self-cognates. I got all nine different words in Spanish, German, Russian, 8 in Turkish, 7 in Hungarian and Lithuanian, 6 in Greek and Swahili, 5 in Tagalog. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2017, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/37 "2017-11-26T13:12:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Corry El** : > > What’s a synonym? That’s a judgement call. For example in case of another language with a bigger dictionary than English, Japanese, there’s a cultural affectation among Japanese to call what are basically synonyms in their language ‘exquisitely nuanced differences only we can fully understand’. On thinking about this some more, I’m remembering an online discussion I was a part of many years ago (I don’t think it was on this board), where an English learner (I think his native language was Chinese) was complaining about how many synonyms English has, and why do we have so many different words to mean the exact same thing. His specific example was “fog” and “mist”, and no matter how many times the native English-speakers tried to explain the difference to him, he just kept on complaining that they were exactly the same. So what I’m trying to say, I guess, is that maybe it really isn’t a cultural affectation in Japanese, and maybe their near-synonyms really do have subtle distinctions of meaning. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/38 "2017-11-27T19:28:59Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > As a rough test, I ran a list of nine synonyms for “wave” through Google Translate, and eliminated results that were either English cognates or near self-cognates. I got all nine different words in Spanish, German, Russian, 8 in Turkish, 7 in Hungarian and Lithuanian, 6 in Greek and Swahili, 5 in Tagalog. Though would the speakers of those languages actually recognize them as synonyms in the English sense? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/39 "2017-11-27T23:17:54Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Though would the speakers of those languages actually recognize them as synonyms in the English sense? Unlikely. “Wave” has multiple meanings, so the nine synonyms were not necessarily synonyms of each other in English. Furthermore, those nine synonyms are likely to have more than one meaning themselves, so their translations could be far removed in meaning from “wave”. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622/40 "2017-11-27T23:53:56Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Well, there was certainly a major one before that, of Roman Legions, who stayed a few hundred years. And then the Roman Hadrian built a Wall to deter additional invasions from the wild savages of Scotland. So I’d say England had more than 2 invasions. But they don’t seem to have left any linguistic legacy. There is plenty of Latin influence in English but it is all either indirectly via Norman French or later additions due to the prevalence of Latin in European religious, legal, and scientific culture. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-english-have-unusually-large-number-of-synonyms/802622.md?page=3)