The number of words in English has grown from 55,000 to 65,000 words approximately in Old English to more than a million today. There are a number of ways in which the English vocabulary enhances. The most prominent method in which it grows is by borrowing words from other languages. Approximatley 75% of the entries in any English dictionary are borrowed, mainly from Latin. Another way is by combining words into one word such as housewife, greenhouse, and overdue. The addition of prefixes and suffixes to words also increases the immense vocabulary of the English language.
Today, more than 800 million people use the English language. An average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 words in a week. Despite its widespread use, there are only about 400 million people who use it as their mother tongue. As per researchers one out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence.
English has official or special status in at least 75 countries in the world with a total population of over two billion.
More than half of the world's technical and scientific periodicals as well three quarters of the world's communications are in English. About 80% of the information stored in the world's computers (such as this text) are also in English. English is also transmitted to more than 500 million people everyday by several largest broadcasting companies (CNN, BBC, EURO NEWS, AL JAZEERA, CCTV, CBS, NBC, ABC, CBC). It seems like English will remain the most widely used language for some time in this planet.
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