English Has the Richest Vocabulary

Number of human languages and dialects: 6,912

Number of words in the English language: 500,000 according to the number of words in the Oxford English Dictionary. There are supposedly another 500,000 uncataloged technical and scientific terms. By comparison, most estimates indicate that German has a vocabulary of about 185,000 words and French and Spanish have fewer than 100,000 words.

Number of people who use English: 750 million

Number of people for whom English is their mother tongue: 350 million

Percent of information stored on the world's computer in English: 80%

Percent of world's technical and scientific periodicals in English: >50%

Official language of the Olympics: English

Default language of aviation and air traffic control: English