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From: kriha_p@actrix.gen.nz (Paul J. Kriha)
Subject: Re: Vocabulary size in various languages
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Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 17:52:55 GMT
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In article <phrDJL0pA.6yt@netcom.com>, phr@netcom.com (Paul Rubin) wrote:
>In article <4aco9a$379@milo.freenet.vancouver.bc.ca>,
>Kenneth Rivkin <kenr@opus.freenet.vancouver.bc.ca> wrote:
>>Does anyone know of a source that gives camparisons of the number of 
>>words in various languages? There would be many conceptual difficulties 
>>with this, of course, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried to come up with 
>>some reasonable estimates.
>
>I do know that in most French-English/English-French dictionaries,
>the French-English side is considerably smaller because there are
>fewer words in French than English.  This even applies to pocket
>dictionaries, which contain fewer really obscure words than big
>dictionaries.

I suspect that the reason for the French dictionary being
smaller is that it contains only French words.
:-)

Paul JK.
