The Frequency of Latin Words and Their Endings wrote:This count Is based on 202,158 words in selections from over two hundred Latin authors, from Ennius to Erasmus. It yields a "recommended basic vocabulary" of 1,471 vords, arranged in groups of related words., which enable one to recognize 83.6 per cent of the words in the literature examined in this study.
Latin has a relatively small vocabulary, with less that four thousand words in general, current use. Greek has three times that number, modern English prescribes 10,000 for a college student, 50,000 for a teacher, and there are half a million words available one way or another.
Some people speak of up to 50 million words in Greek
[/url][/quote]Any one who bears in mind the bulk of Greek literature, which is at least 10 times as great [as that of Latin], its dialectical variations, its incredible wealth of forms, the obstinate persistence of the classical speech for thousands of years down to the fall of Constantinople, or, if you will, until the present day: who knows, moreover, that the editions of almost all the Greek classics are entirely unsuited for the purposes of slipping, that for many important writers no critical editions whatever exist: and who considers the state of our collections of fragments and special Lexica, will see that at the present time all the bases upon which a Greek Thesaurus could be erected are lacking.
But even if we were to assume that we possessed such editions and collections from Homer down to Nonnus, or (as Krumbacher proposed in London) down to Apostolius, and further that they had all been worked over, slipped, or excerpted by a gigantic staff of scholars, and that a great house had preserved and stored the thousands of boxes, whence would come the time, money, and power to sift these millions of slips and to bring Nous into this Chaos ? Since the proportion of Latin to Greek Literature is about 1:10, the office work of the Greek Thesaurus would occupy at least 100 scholars. At their head there would have to be a general editor, who, however, would be more of a general than an editor. And if this editorial cohort were really to perform its task punctually, and if the Association of Academies, which, as is well known, has not a penny of its own, were to raise the ten million marks necessary for the completion of (say) 120 volumes; and if scholars were to become so opulent that they could afford to purchase the Thesaurus Graecus for (say) 6,ooo marks-how could one read and use such a monstrosity?
In April 2001, the TLG® became available Online to subscribing institutions and individuals. The web version currently provides access to 3,700 authors and 12,000 works, approximately 91 million words. It is updated quarterly with new authors and works.
chad wrote:hi, i think the TLG number is a word count, not a "lemma" count, e.g. kai/ would be counted 1000s of times in that number.
edonnelly wrote:I don't know the answer for sure, but as far as Latin goes, there's a nice doctoral dissertation from Dr. Paul Diederich (1939 U. of Chicago Press) online. He wasn't addressing your question. I like it because he comes up with the 1,471 most useful words to know (and puts them in meaningful groups to help you remember), but from his dissertation comes:The Frequency of Latin Words and Their Endings wrote:This count Is based on 202,158 words in selections from over two hundred Latin authors, from Ennius to Erasmus. It yields a "recommended basic vocabulary" of 1,471 vords, arranged in groups of related words., which enable one to recognize 83.6 per cent of the words in the literature examined in this study.
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