Is there biologic, educational, or logistic limit on active vocabulary?

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Is there biologic, educational, or logistic limit on active vocabulary?

Postby outcast » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:03 pm

When you look at things across language families, continents, and cultures, when it comes to the average active vocabulary needed to understand 90% of spoken language, the numbers are remarkably similar no matter what language: always clustered around 2000, plus or minus a few hundred. Even when it comes to logographic systems like Hanzi / Kanji, a 2000 character recognition covers 90+% of all written texts. This number, as said above, is steady across language families and cultures. This strongly suggest there is a ceiling to active vocabulary. But caused by which factor is what I would want to know.

- Is it because there is an actual biological limit in the active vocabulary process? Over a certain amount (2000 words), and some words are so rarely used that they just "fall off" the active memory center, only to remain passive (reading only)? Is there a certain number of times or interval of time a word must be used in to remain in active memory?

- Is it because of educational conditions? That is to say, that active vocabulary is only as high as your level of education? This would mean people in the past (before universal education), had far smaller active vocabularies, and I don't know if this is true. And then there is the "Grandfather is a walking dictionary" effect: if your grandparents were educated, they seem to have a high vocabulary and scoff at the youngsters that don't know half the words they use in their speech/writing. Is it actually true two or three generations ago it was all more strict about vocabulary buildup, reading, etc?

- Is it because of logistical reasons? You only have so many hours to talk in a day, and in those hours only a certain amount of words can be used. Or is it logistical, in the sense that only 2000 words can describe the whole world around you, thus no further need to expand on that is needed nor made? You can say "endeavor", "essay", "attempt", "give it a shot", or "try" to do something, in many contexts interchangeably, but since "try" works just fine, no need to keep the others in your active vocabulary, so thinks the brain.

So why around 2000 (though some may say 2500 or even 3000, but the idea is the same), what is it about about this amount...
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Re: Is there biologic, educational, or logistic limit on active vocabulary?

Postby leosmith » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:19 pm

outcast wrote:when it comes to logographic systems like Hanzi / Kanji, a 2000 character recognition covers 90+% of all written texts

I just wanted to point out that the number of single characters isn't equal to the number of words. For example, there are more high-usage 2-character words than 1-character words in Mandarin. 2,000 characters could possibly give you a vocabulary of more than 10,000 words or less than 2,000 words, so you have to specify words when you talk about vocabulary size.
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Re: Is there biologic, educational, or logistic limit on active vocabulary?

Postby Cavesa » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:48 pm

An interesting question.

One problem that I have with those 2000 estimates is pretty simple. They usually measure active vocabulary as words really used over a certain period of time. But not saying a word for a decade still doesn't mean the person is unable to use it and only understands it passively. There are lots of such words that we don't often say but we are perfectly able to, if the situation requires it. I simply don't think those words count as passive, and if they are active, than there are certainly way over the 2000 number.

Biological limit? I don't think that is the main limitation, unless we talk about neurological pathologies. As countless medicine students prove: you can always learn more, even if you feel like the new information might be pushing out old useless stuff, such as personal memories, ability to tie your shoes, or your name :-D

There may definitely be a limit to the speed of acquisition, that could vary alot among individual learners, perhaps there could be a ceiling, but I personally don't think vast majority of speakers is anywhere near it.

Educational conditions are definitely important. Of course you are likely to use more words, if you need to talk about other stuff than your daily needs. The example of people having smaller vocabularies is a nice one. A practical example. Czech was a second rate language in the country for a few centuries. More and more people were throwing it away and spoke just German, German was the one you used in all the important situations, during communication with the rich, with clerks, and so on. The decision to rid universities in the AU Empire of Latin and use only German instead hurt the language too. It became the language of the poor and uneducated, language of the servants. When the Revivalists chose to "make it great again" (which I think was a tragical mistake and an irresponsible decision, the consequences of which we bear even today and will for at least one or two more centuries), they found a language that simply lacked vocabulary in many areas. They resisted the idea that Czech was simply unsuitable for science or philosophy or anything. They reinvented lots of vocabulary. Some of their attempts at purely Czech words were quite laughable, most were successful. They proved that the language was definitely capable of expressing everything, that much is true.

So yes, it is definitely logical that people without higher education have lower vocabularies. And it is definitely possible for a language as a whole to have a smaller vocabulary, due to lack of educated speakers. It is therefore reasonable to assume that people used to have smaller vocabulary in general.

Logistical reasons are very probable, if we are talking just about the amount of words we say over a certain period of time, not about the amount of words we are able to say.

I would say the main reason was described at the end of the post. People are lazy. Why use more precise or varied vocabulary, when a basic word suffices? Do you think majority of people is working on their education, larger vocabulary being part of it or a side effect, once they are not forced to? Perhaps the 2000 is the minimum for survival, and most people don't have bigger aspirations than that, they don't need rich vocabulary to watch their telenovela, they don't need creative use of language to buy their groceries and gossip.
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Lazy Logistics

Postby coldrainwater » Sat Jun 24, 2017 6:31 pm

I'll add a vote for the lazy logistics factor. From my standpoint, there is often downward pressure on active vocabulary. In my day to day life, people often balk at the slightest use of lower-frequency vocabulary, no matter how appropriate the chosen word or words may be. It is quite discouraging to have native speaker issues with words in the 2-10k frequency. I feel like I am in trouble when I can't slip in a 10k frequency word without being met with a blank stare. Thankfully that situation is not everywhere pervasive.

I agree with the related idea that there may be a 'path of least resistance' factor where one gets by with the minimum vocabulary necessary to be sufficiently expressive. It is worth noting that people might choose several words to describe an idea, tantamount to circumlocution, in lieu of picking a single less frequent, but more precise word (a better abstraction if you will). The path of least resistance can often be the longer path, but we are likely to choose it notwithstanding. So the simple word set of 2k is very appealing generally. For my liking, we live in a world far too easily sated by knowledge acquisition. The hunger and desire to learn (acquiring vocabulary in the process or as a goal in itself) is there, but only in a small subset of the population.
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