LETTERS

Natural History, March, 2001

Word Count

In his article on the evolution of language, "Homo Grammaticus" (12/00-1/01), Martin A. Nowak states that "English has about 100,000 words." But an article in the December 2000 issue of Smithsonian notes that English has "a total vocabulary of maybe two million words." There is a wide disparity between the two figures. Could you shed some light on which is the more accurate total?

Don Bessette Wassaic, New York

If I counted every word in the Oxford English Dictionary, would I come up with a number reasonably close to the 100,000 quoted by Martin A. Nowak? And would an ordinary seventeen-year-old really know half of these?

H. (Mottle) Kuhlman via e-mail

THE EDITORS REPLY:

Psychologists, linguists, and dictionary publishers use different methods to derive their estimates of the number of words in a language. Nowak's figure is conservative. The roots and stems of words, derivatives and compounds, suffixes and prefixes, proper names, acronyms, and the words for numbers can all come into play when totaling words in a language and when estimating the number of words in an individual's vocabulary. For references, as well as a readable discussion of how some of these variable figures are reached, Nowak recommends Steven Pinker's book The Language Instinct (HarperCollins, 1994). Pinker maintains that "people can recognize vastly more words than they have occasion to use in some fixed period of time or space" and he believes that an average high-school graduate would probably be credited with around 60,000 words. Nowak also encourages interested readers to look at W. E. Nagy et al., "The Acquisition of Morphology: Learning the Contribution of Suffixes to the Meanings of Derivatives" (Journal of Reading Behavior 25, 1993) and W.E. Nagy and R. C. Anderson, "How Many Words Are There in Printed School English?" (Reading Research Quarterly 19, 1984).

Expedition of Two

The note on the 1943-44 Paricutin Expedition to Mexico ("An Expedition Notebook, 1900-2000," 12/00-1/01 supplement) brought back memories, for I went to see that volcano with my sister in August 1944. We went by bus from Uruapan to get as close as possible. When the bus could go no farther, we mounted horses and made our way down a steep incline. Everywhere there was desolation--trees black and bare-limbed and the ground covered with gritty black ash. Such utter desolation, yet, scattered here and there, white mountain poppies managed to push up through the ash.

The lava flow ended abruptly in a jumbled high wall. A short distance away rose the bell tower of a church, all that remained visible of the village of San Juan Parangaricutiro. My sister and I climbed up the ragged lava with great care. From deep crevices we could feel the heat where lava had not as yet cooled from the last flow. By this time it was getting dark, and a misty rain was falling. We made our way over the lava and walked into the shelter of the open bell tower. We stood there in the dark, listening to the roar of the volcano beyond, a sound like continuous thunder, and watched fiery boulders shoot into the air. Some fell back into the crater; others hit the lip and went bouncing down the sides of the volcano in a shower of sparks while behind us the rain spit and sizzled in pockets of still-hot lava. Awesome memories. Thank you.

Doris Hopper Jacksonville, Illinois

Nerd Humor

I read Neil de Grasse Tyson's article on the laws of physics ("Universe" 11/00) and found his point about the universality of laws based on numerous observations and experiments to be well made. I loved the reference to his old T-shirt bearing the words "Obey Gravity." I have one that states "Why Fight Entropy?" Of course, it is falling apart.

Jim Massa via e-mail

First Fight

In "Who's on First?" ("Reviews," 7/00-8/00), Anna Curtenius Roosevelt reviews my book The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory and E. James Dixon's book Bones, Boats, and Bison: Archeology and the First Colonization of Western North America. Readers who are unacquainted with the archaeology of the first Americans may be impressed by Roosevelt's assertions. But in response, I urge them to look at two publications that appeared in a scientific journal and that refute her claims. They are (1) D.J. Meltzer et al., "On the Pleistocene Antiquity of Monte Verde, Southern Chile" (American Antiquity 62:4, 1997) and (2) R. E. Taylor and C.V. Haynes, "Radiocarbon Analysis of Modern Organics at Monte Verde, Chile: No Evidence for a Local Reservoir Effect" (American Antiquity 64:3, 1999).

Tom D. Dillehay
T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor
of Anthropology
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky

Natural History's e-mail address is nhmag@amnh.org.