How many words does the Arabic language have?
10 Answers
Muhammad.Al-Jawhary, Native Arabic speaker
Originally Answered: How many words are there in the Arabic language?
Any concrete answer to this is actually false! Arabic is much more flexible to have its vocabulary counted by the number of words.
There are “accurate” answers though about how many are there in different Ma`ajim (plural of Mu`jam, a collection of words organized and categorized by the alphabetic order)
An “oh-so-specific-and-logical” answer that is more of an assumption to me is that Arabic has: between 100,000 (if you are so stingy), just a few millions (if you disregard all words not currently in usage), 12 million (one restrict rule) 90 million words and 500 million words! All of these numbers are the results of linguistic queries conducted in the past. And the number varies depending on what do you count as a word.
There are “accurate” answers though about how many are there in different Ma`ajim (plural of Mu`jam, a collection of words organized and categorized by the alphabetic order)
An “oh-so-specific-and-logical” answer that is more of an assumption to me is that Arabic has: between 100,000 (if you are so stingy), just a few millions (if you disregard all words not currently in usage), 12 million (one restrict rule) 90 million words and 500 million words! All of these numbers are the results of linguistic queries conducted in the past. And the number varies depending on what do you count as a word.
So, why did I say we can never know? It’s because Arabic has a three-/four-/five-lettered root in the simplest past form, it has a meaning in itself like for example:
كَـتَـبَ
KaTaBa (a=shwa, short vowel)
This verb means “wrote”, no indication of female, duality, plurality, direction of action or emphasize yet… This word can now generate at least 30 other meaningful words!
Just put that small root into DOZENS OF word scales/patterns to attach each root to a certain scale/pattern which in itself implies a specific kind of word).
كَـتَـبَ
KaTaBa (a=shwa, short vowel)
This verb means “wrote”, no indication of female, duality, plurality, direction of action or emphasize yet… This word can now generate at least 30 other meaningful words!
Just put that small root into DOZENS OF word scales/patterns to attach each root to a certain scale/pattern which in itself implies a specific kind of word).
What on Earth does that even mean?
Let’s take KaTaBa and implement it into a dozen of different scales:
Let’s take KaTaBa and implement it into a dozen of different scales:
×You can create several verbs simply meaning to write, but in different tenses and doers: كَتبتَ، كَتَبَتْ، كتبتي، كتبتم، كتبتما، كتبتن، يكتبون تكتبن
But literally, that’s not even half of the possible words (they’re all distinct from one another, and accurate to the letter! So if use one of them, it won’t be confused with another. There’s no redundancy of different versions of one verb, each variation serves a certain purpose, it can reflect a different gender, being singular or plural, being in the past, present, future or more, etc. )
But literally, that’s not even half of the possible words (they’re all distinct from one another, and accurate to the letter! So if use one of them, it won’t be confused with another. There’s no redundancy of different versions of one verb, each variation serves a certain purpose, it can reflect a different gender, being singular or plural, being in the past, present, future or more, etc. )
× A dozen of nouns and adjectives:
1- doer = [KaTeB] = كاتب = writer (Scale: فاعِل - Fa3el)
2- object = [maKToB] = مكتوب = written/message (Scale: مَفعول - maF3ool)
3- different object = [KeTaab] = كِتاب = book (Scale: فِعال - Fe3aal)
4- another object = [maKTaBah] = مكتبة = library (Scale: maF3aLah)
1- doer = [KaTeB] = كاتب = writer (Scale: فاعِل - Fa3el)
2- object = [maKToB] = مكتوب = written/message (Scale: مَفعول - maF3ool)
3- different object = [KeTaab] = كِتاب = book (Scale: فِعال - Fe3aal)
4- another object = [maKTaBah] = مكتبة = library (Scale: maF3aLah)
Additionally: كُتاب، مَكتَب، إكّتِتاب، مُكاتبة، كُتَيّب ….. It DOESN’T stop any time soon, all kinds of words related to writing you can imagine can somehow all be expressed using a three-sound/three-letter -root, put in so many shapes and forms!
So, there is no correct answer, as a lot of words can be put in any scale and give a lot of grammatically correct words, while each word can be never or rarely used locally… It would still be a valid and comprehensible word.
Example: كَتُوب [KaTooB] - this word would mean someone who writes a lot, I don’t remember reading it before, but I doubt anyone who knows proper Arabic would find it difficult to understand what it means.
Example: كَتُوب [KaTooB] - this word would mean someone who writes a lot, I don’t remember reading it before, but I doubt anyone who knows proper Arabic would find it difficult to understand what it means.
The other problem is when people count from معاجم [Ma`ajim], it’s not like that collection of all words in a language… Arabic got super changed, yet remained untouched, meaning the the Standard Arabic is still almost the same, yet the different local Arabic dialects Also were born, having simpler vocabulary yet more modern and has more borrowed and Arabized words!
The correct answer: You can barely count how many scales are there, then you’ll have to count how many roots are there, the multiplication of the two will give you only the maximum possible words from known roots, it’s 100% not accurate, because not all of them are used (although they all have meanings and can be used!)
And also a lot of words don’t count (for being too similar to another word) or get counted twice in two close case (because
And also a lot of words don’t count (for being too similar to another word) or get counted twice in two close case (because
the word for the two boys lived is different from the word for a group of women or a gendered human name/adj. or an animal, etc.!
This is more reasonable, but usable English today has more words that Arabic dialects, but almost 100% surely Arabic has a little more than English as a classic type: Fus7a
Thanks for asking such a hard question, I seriously had fun going through this issue; follow my blog about the Arabic language :D No self-promo intended!
Muhammad Da'na, ♥ I love Arabic ♥
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Is this answer still relevant and up to date?
Steven Bergman, Ph.D. PhD in Linguistics
Answered Oct 30, 2017 · Upvoted by Logan R. Kearsley, MA in Linguistics from BYU, 8 years working in research for language pedagogy.
I would say that it has at most 100.000 actual usable words.
Some people have given some accurate descriptions of the morphology of Arabic in here. However, if you look at all the judhuur (جذور) in the Arabic system that are found in lisan al-arab (i.e. the biggest Arabic dictionary, for whoever doesn’t know it), you will very rapidly realize that there are probably just at most 1000 consonant roots that are viable and proliferating.
12 million words? 90? 500???? Come on…
Tthe patterns of word construction are not all so common. I can think of at most 100 patterns (فاعل، تفعيل، مفاعلة، استفعل, etc.) that produce commonly used words in Arabic.
When referring to words, you must think that words are carriers of meaning. And out of those many millions of possible words created through the root system and the Arabic patterns, a mere 5% (if lucky) are usable even in the most complex contexts.
Remember that words in Arabic have even tens of meanings at times, rendering the need of building/creating new words obsolete.
I am a professor and interpreter of Arabic and I’m using it in all possible domains.
I can tell you that I use almost the same words for mathematics, judicial or talk-shows.
I will give you just ONE example, so you can understand how little is the number of words needed in Arabic. Look at the meanings attributed to ONE verb from:
ذَهَبَ - dhahaba.
P.S. Being Semitic languages, Aramaic/Syriac and Hebrew have almost the same number of words also, if you count all their roots and morphological patterns: they have words by the tens of millions also :)) lol… what a joke
Nour Douchi, Bachelors of Arts Computer Science & Mathematics, University of Nebraska at Omaha (2001)
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