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Word Loss | ||
Tags: Word Frequency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5087 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 5 08 April 2013 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all,
I've had a discussion lately about the size of the active vocabulary of a language relative to the total vocabulary. I realize those are hard terms to define, but generally I would consider active vocabulary to be words a significant portion (say more than 5%) of native speakers still use. If that isn't true, then there is little point in saying the word as your listening probably won't understand. So with that definition, English has a large number of non-active words (for example, looking at the harder end of a test for vocabulary size I see "sparge", "caitiff" and "fuliginous", all words which I have never heard in any situation). So the point of the discussion was whether this is true for all languages. So is it some kind of English only phenomena, or would any language eventually reach this kind of situation with many forgotten words? I realize it's hard to speak in absolutes on such a topic, but I'm interested in general impressions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 2 of 5 08 April 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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In every language words keep disappearing. Some become obsolete, some are regionalismen, which become superseded by synonymous words, a new generations coins other slang words, some words are even restricted to a family, when they speak with each other.
Since Arthur spoke to his compagnons at the round table, whole armies of different words were born and died or changed. It is unevitable and no specialty of the English language. You cannot do a calculation of the ratio, because you do not know all forgotten words. And were do you want to stop. Is a word which is last used by the first English king Æthelstan in the tenth century part of it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4445 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 3 of 5 09 April 2013 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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A langage like Chinese characters don't disappear. They are just used in different ways to form new words
and phrases. Over the years there are phrases in the language that never existed even 100 years ago like astronaut or air conditioning and even word usage vary across the Chinese community such as: 太空人 tàikōngrén for astronaut in Hong Kong & Taiwan, 航天員 hángtiānyuán for Mainland China. 冷氣 lěngqì for A-C in Hong Kong & Taiwan, 空調 kōngtiáo in Mainland China. And since the 1980s tech revolution, new terms are constantly being invented: 視窗 shìchuāng (Window as an operating system) 上載 shàngzài & 下載 xiàzǎi (upload & download) 臉書 Liǎnshū (Facebook) 博客 bókè (online blog) If you are in Hong Kong a number of years ago people would speak Cantonese on the street but everybody learn to write in "standard" Chinese using Mandarin expressions. Newspapers & magazines still write in standard Chinese but increasingly the online community are using Cantonese expressions in E-mails and discussion blogs. After Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule, people in Hong Kong are more keen on writing with Cantonese expressions as part of their distinct character within China. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dcbaok Groupie United States Joined 4483 days ago 46 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 09 April 2013 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of your 3 examples, I've seen all used and have used 1 myself.
You'll find "spargers" pretty common in chemistry, biology and biotech industry. This is specialist vocabulary, not inactive. The other 2 are more relict, I've only seen caitiff in the context of the video game Nethack, where it is a feature of the knight class. I imagine it is a good candidate for a relict or obsolete word. I think it's borrowed from French anyway. "Fuliginous" I've seen in literature of various ages. It's definitely used for its obscure character in more modern works. I have an uncommon word to add to your list. I recently encountered "minatory" and had to look it up (which doesn't happen often to me in English). Perhaps it is commonly used in some context but I don't believe I've ever seen it before. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 5 10 April 2013 at 11:19am | IP Logged | ||
If I was speaking one to one with somebody then I might try to restrict myself to words we both understand. If I had some junk I wanted to sell then I might also resort to a dumbing down strategy in order not to irritate potential customers (ignoring all those who feel patronized and those who quite generally hate advertizing). But outside those two situations I would not necessarily stop using a word just because 95% of the population doesn't use it. People understand more words than those they use (passive vocabulary versus active vocabulary), and if just 5 % obnoxious speakers of a language keep using a certain word then maybe half the general population will still understand it. And that half will probably be the half I might want to communicate with because they on a general level are the ones who are interested in learning and understanding things. But of course there is a lower limit, and it has some affinity to the definition of comprehensible input in language learning. If I use a few old or regional words then it won't block the communication (actually I would be the one who blocked any further communication if the other part made a fuzz about it). If everything I say sounds like an excerpt from Beowulf then I'll find few listeners. Edited by Iversen on 10 April 2013 at 11:29am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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