It is difficult to directly answer the question of how many words there are in Russian. For example, in the dictionary of S. I. Ozhegov there are only about 57 thousand of the most common words. You can also turn to the most authoritative of the existing dictionaries - the Great Academic, which contains as many as 17 volumes. The list of words of the Russian language in this bibliographic publication includes 131,257. By the way, in 1970 this work was awarded the Lenin Prize, but, unfortunately, quickly became a rarity. Replaced it with a slightly outdated but popular Dahl dictionary.
Despite such an exact number, we cannot say that the answer to the question of how many words there are in Russian is given correctly. Rather, this answer will be conditional due to the large number of reservations that can easily change a given number of words. It is only necessary to add a suffix to adjectives to form an adverb, as there will be even more words, say, by about several tens of thousands. For example, from the adjective "frank" we form the adverb "frankly". In the dictionary, this isnot indicated by a stand-alone unit.
It is worth adding that the dictionary contains only words from the literary language, that is, normalized, but there are still words of nationwide Russian communication! The language is rich in a huge number of nouns and adjectives that exist in rural areas, in which there is a very large variety of the most incredible dialect words. Try to guess that "potka" in Vyatka villages means a bird! What about the verb "to piss off"? You can’t say right away that this pearl is translated from the Vologda dialect as “search”. Of course, in some dictionaries such words are indicated, even specialized dialect dictionaries were written for a particular area. But not a single dictionary is able to absolutely accurately answer the question of how many words there are in Russian.
Okay, let's leave the dialectisms alone for now. They are not so common in the literary language, except perhaps in some works of art to give them a special mood and an interesting story.
Let's remember a separate group of words in the Russian language, which cannot be found in any dictionary, although they are all well-known and widely used. These include, as a rule, terms, neologisms, proper names and other categories of words. For example, the abbreviation "RAN" stands for the Russian Academy of Sciences. You can’t count how many times this name is used in some kind of news or scientific reports. However, at the Bolshoi AcademicThis abbreviation does not exist in the dictionary. Like a foreign, but such a native word "computer" is a modern symbol of an information-rich life. However, all its derivatives are also not in any of the dictionaries.
Obviously, foreign words in Russian have become very common in recent decades. They wanted to release an updated Great Academic Dictionary in 20 volumes, but … After the fourth, it was clear that this did not make the slightest sense. New and new words are constantly appearing in our language. When communicating on the Internet, watching TV or reading specialized magazines - everywhere you will see your own set of words and in some places, perhaps slang.
So how many words are there really in Russian? Very, and once again a very large number. Each of them is modified in its own way, new words appear, their derivatives. The language has a life of its own, following the current trend and the passage of time.
