English vs Spanish: More Words

Simply put, there are more words in English. Is it that English is older than Spanish? Not really. It is difficult to date exactly the origin of a language, but English as we know it, probably was already in use in the 16th century whereas modern Spanish was already being used (due to the fact that Spain consolidated as a major power decades before than England did). But for some reason English ended up having more words than Spanish and other languages as well (around 240,000 words aside technical terms). 
Why is this? Perhaps one reason is that English is much more dynamic since there is no institution around that regulates its development. There is a Real Academia de la Lengua Española that officially admits new words into Spanish and discards the ones that, after exhaustive studies, are deemed to be no longer in use. If you want to know if a word has "officially" been admitted into English then you have to consult the most important dictionaries such as the Merriam-Webster's, or the Oxford dictionary among others.
English is also more versatile: it has more words for the same situation if one or two factors are different. For example when one person kills another in Spanish we call that act ASESINATO regardless if he/she did it on purpose or not. In English the act of killing another on purpose is MURDER, but if the act is not done intentionally is called MANSLAUGHTER. A HOUSE is a CASA  in Spanish , but in English there are also COTTAGES and BUNGALOWS.  When you smile that is a SONRISA, but if it is a broad smile it is a GRIN (and still a SONRISA in Spanish).
Of course to say that one language has 500,000 words and another only 20,000 is really relative because there is always a limited number of words being used by people, meaning that we always say the same things using the same terms in spite of the fact that there are more words at our disposal. and curiously Spanish has been increasing rapidly its bank of words and is doing it following a simple method: taking those words from English.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

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