Basic
English
In
the 1920s the academics C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards proposed Basic English, a
specially constructed simple form of English to be used for as a
‘supranational language.
Why
Basic English? ‘the world’s need for a common language’ (Richards)
Which
language? ‘a priority for English as the world’s ‘second’ language
in the interests of everyone’ (Richards)
How?
‘Basic English is English made simple by limiting the number of its words to
850, and by cutting down the rules for using them to the smallest number
necessary for the clear statement of ideas’ (Richards)
The
850 words (to be supplemented by some specialist and international words)
Operations
100: of, when, not, send, north, again,
do, I etc with 18 verbs come, get,
give, send etc
General
Things: 400: blood, grass cough, look, verse, butter, kick, death, level, knowledge,
etc: all nouns
Picturable
Things: 200: potato,
stomach, cheese, house, berry, eye, school, knife, coat, etc
General
Qualities: 100 : male, good, fertile,
electric, dependent, red, strong, clean, true, violent, etc
Opposites
Qualities: 50: bad, dirty, female,
shut simple, feeble, low, foolish, soft, false, etc
Summary
of Rules
Plurals
in ‘s’: eyes, schools etc
Derivatives
in er ing ed from 300 nouns: stronger,
coughing
Adverbs
in ly from qualifiers, degree with
more and most: most beautiful
Question
by inversion and do: Do you see him?
Operators
and pronouns conjugate in full; he/him/his
etc
And
that’s it. Everything else is built up from these words and rules, a language
reduced to a single page of specifications, rather less complicated than the
instructions for a digital TV.
|
English |
Basic
English translation trans by
Richards |
|
Daniel
Defoe, Robinson Crusoe |
|
|
It happened
one time that going a fishing with him on a calm morning, a fog rose so
thick, that though we were not half a league from the shore, we lost
sight of it; and rowing, we knew not whither, or which way, we laboured
all day and all the next night; … |
It came about
one time that when we had gone fishing on a quiet morning, such a thick
mist came up that, though we were not a mile and a half from the land,
we were unable to see it. Without any knowledge of where, or even which
way we were going, we went on in the boat all that day and all the night
after… |
|
The
Atlantic Charter |
|
|
…. Third
they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government
under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and
self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of
them. |
…Third, they
take the view that all nations have the right to say what form of
government they will have; and it is their desire to see their
self-government and rights as independent nations given back to those
from whom they have been taken away by force. |
Basic English was taken seriously for many years. It has now been supplanted the de facto use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) across the globe, whose characteristics comes from its users rather than being laid down by authorities.