How fast is the English language expanding?
Recent research suggests that the English language has doubled in size over the last century. It continues to grow 'by 8,500 words a year and now stands at 1,022,000 words.'
The pace of this growth is accelerating, with the word count expanding by more than 70 per cent since 1950. In the previous half century it only grew by 10 per cent.
Part of this expansion has been due to increasing numbers of loanwords, part of a general process of globalisation.Science & Technology
Another factor has been the creation of new vocabulary categories to describe advances in science and technology. These often draw on existing words.
Digital, for example, comes from the Latin for digit or finger - but has now created a lexicon of its own
