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Ogden's Basic English is not simple English. Although some state that Basic English, is also known as Simple English, Charles Kay Ogden stated (001 p. 139): Basic is as much a protest against this new school(ed. "the word counters") which, with the 850 words before it, is attempting to make the first steps to English simpler without system, as against the old, which has no war-cries such as "Correct English" but is at least wasting the learners time with some belief of the value of hard work. Simple English (ed. emphasis added) as an instrument of education is something more than a short way to reading Tit-Bits, and Basic will only be of use to education authorities when they are conscious of the damage which is being done by viewing the schools as a forcing-house for hotel-porters. Although some state that Basic English : is an English-based controlled language. Ogden in many places states that many of the Basic words have Saxon roots rather than similar senses from the Norman which often are not as direct in expression.. I have difficulty with the concept of a "controlled language" which is at odds with the reasoning on which Basic is based. (002)

Although some state that Basic was: created (in essence as a simplified subset of English) by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a Second Language. It was presented in Ogden's book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar (1930). Capitalised, BASIC is sometimes taken as an acronym that stands for British American Scientific International Commercial.[1] these statements are subject to interpretation. To quote Ogden(003-p.4): Basic English has two chief purposes: 1. To serve as an international auxiliary language; that is to say, a second language for use throughout the world in general communication, commerce, and science 2.To provide a rational introduction to normal English;both as a first step, complete in itself, for those whose natural language is not English, and as a grammatical introduction, encouraging clarity of thought and expression, for English-speaking peoples at any stage of proficiency.

And as Basic English is a system "complete in itself" its presentation takes more than a single book. Ogden states (004-Introduction p. x): This ABC (004) and The Basic Words (005) give the teacher with some knowledge of English everything needed for building up further material; but guides in a number of other languages, and in forms designed by experts in different systems, are now in print. In The Basic Dictionary (006) the 7,500 commonest words of normal English are put into Basic- which makes it possible to do the same for any other language in the near future (007); and in Basic by Examples (008) there are 120 pages of simple examples for everyday use (004 p. x) The capitalized words with the bolded first letter of each are printed in all my Basic books.

The following are secondary references and require only one comment (009):

Ogden's Basic, and the concept of a simplified English, gained its greatest publicity just after the Allied victory in the Second World War as a means for world peace. Although Basic English was not built into a program, similar simplifications have been devised for various international uses. Ogden's associate I. A. Richards promoted its use in schools in China.[2] More recently, it has influenced the creation of Voice of America's Special English for news broadcasting, and Simplified English, another English-based controlled language designed to write technical manuals. What survives today of Ogden's Basic English is the basic 850-word list used as the beginner's vocabulary of the English language taught worldwide, especially in Asia.[3]

Contents 1 Design principles 2 Word lists 3 Rules 4 Criticism 5 Literary references 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Design principles Some have said: Ogden tried to simplify English while keeping it normal for native speakers, by specifying grammar restrictions and a controlled small vocabulary which makes an extensive use of paraphrasis. Most notably, Ogden allowed only 18 verbs, which he called "operators". His General Introduction says "There are no 'verbs' in Basic English", with the underlying assumption that, as noun use in English is very straightforward but verb use/conjugation is not, the elimination of verbs would be a welcome simplification [4] Three points require discussion: 1)"grammar restrictions and a controlled small vocabulary" 2) paraphrasis 3)"Ogden allowed only 18 verbs" 1)grammar restrictions and a controlled small vocabulary The word "grammar" is now commonly used in the sense of "prescribed grammar" or the writing down of rules for the use of language rather than in the classical sense of grammatica as used in McLuhan's thesis (014). Ogden does not prescribe rules for the use of language only for the use of words. The student of prescribed grammar is referred to (004-p.x): (a) list of the other books designed to be used in connection with the ABC (which)is given on the last page:and naturally it is a good idea to make a start with some sort of story or general reading-material as early as possible. The words "a controlled small vocabulary" seem to me misleading. In astronomy news now we hear of the "Goldilocks Zone", neither too hot or too cold. Some ask "Why 850 words, why not more or why not fewer"? (015) 2) paraphrasis This phrase names one of the processes Ogden took from Bentham. Here is some of what he says(016-p.xlvii): The inevitable tendency is for logical translators to neglect this feature (ed. metaphorical language and jargon) until it is too late to give it adequate attention. Makeshifts consequently mar the final results, or, as more often happens, entities are invented to correct distortions of reference and to populate the world with fictions. Bentham's powerful and original prophylactic device for such liguistic aberrations is the archetype which at the start fixes the reference of words to observed entities, and at the same time provides the foundation aand framework for a verbal expansion rto any degree of explicitness and exhaustiveness that we may need for accurate translation. In fact, the two processes of archetypation and phraseoplerosis (ed. emphasis added) may carry translation beyond its primary function into what is usually called logical analysis; Bentham with characteristic vigour calls it the analysis of fictions. The expansion catches, analyses, and traces lines of reference for, those planetary adjectives and opaque metaphors that confuse the best minds even in the most familiar jargons. The archetypes, which are usually actual or pictured bodies in rest or in motion, act as symbolic and logical lenses and bring fictional terms to focus on a man's experience, or dissolve them into their original nothingness. This is more than even the most highly complicated logics have achieved, and Bentham's technique is as simple as it is original.

Paraphrasis in Bentham's words (ibid -p.86 and ff) is: that mode of exposition which is the only instructive mode where the thing expressed, being the name of a fictitious entity, has not any superior in the scale of logical subalternation.

3)"Ogden allowed only 18 verbs" Ogden said (004-p,21): Basic English has only 16 such words (ed. names for acts or operators), in addition to be (pages 25, 73, 100). (ibid-p.22) Seem may be grouped with be, as the word for what is certainly not a fact, but only a question of opinion, or has the air of being something. (ibid-p.23) Lastly, there are the two 'auxiliaries' (may,and will),which, like be and have,give us help in saying things about the time at which an act is done, or the degree in which it is possible.(ibid-p.25): BE,HAVE,WILL,MAY The four words which give this help, then, are be, have, may, and will. Of these be and have, in the addition to the help they give in making statements with the names of acts, may be used by themselves.

To sum this part up, Basic English has 16 words for the names of acts plus four for auxiliaries of which two can be used alone for a total of eighteen. But there are 50 special uses or idioms of the operators and 80 for the directives and together they can be used to give the sense of thousands of "verbs". Does it make more sense to say "Ogden allowed only 18 verbs" or "If one learns the tricks of a small number of operators, directives and things one can give the sense of thousands of "verbs" each of which have their own tricks. Or as Ogden says (ibid-p.37): Every time you put together the name of one of the 10 simple acts (six of which are free to go in almost any direction)with the name of one of the 20 directions or positions in space, you are making a 'verb'; that is to say, in some languages  a new word would be necessary for the complete act.

Word lists Ogden's word lists include only word roots, which in practice are extended with the defined set of affixes and the full set of forms allowed for any available word (noun, pronoun, or the limited set of verbs).[5] The 850 core words of Basic English are found in Wiktionary's Basic English word list. This core is theoretically enough for everyday life. However, Ogden prescribed that any student should learn an additional 150 - word list for everyday work in some particular field, by adding a word list of 100 words particularly useful in a general field (e.g., science, verse, business, etc.), along with a 50 - word list from a more specialised subset of that general field, to make a basic 1000 words vocabulary for everyday work and life. Moreover, Ogden assumed that any student already should be familiar with (and thus may only review) a core subset of around 350 "international" words.[6] Therefore, a first-level student should graduate with a core vocabulary of around 1350 words. A realistic general core vocabulary could contain 1500 words (the core 850 words, plus 350 international words, and 300 words for the general fields of trade, economics, and science). A VOA Special English 1500 words vocabulary is included in the Simple English Wikipedia. Ogden provided lists to extend the general 850 words vocabulary to make a 2600 word list, enough for a "standard" English level.[7][8] This 2600 words vocabulary represents "what any learner should know". At this level students could start to move on their own.

In this section on Word Lists I only want to comment on the statement: Ogden's word lists include only word roots, which in practice are extended with the defined set of affixes and the full set of forms allowed for any available word (noun, pronoun, or the limited set of verbs). Each of the 850 has a root sense. As mentioned above many Basic words have idiomatic or expanded senses (250 in all). Some also have a special use. Many have derivative uses also. The Basic word "account" has a root sense of "description" and a special use of "bill". There can only be one special use for a word. The Basic word "acid" has a root sense of "sour" and an expanded or metaphoric sense of "acrimonious". There can be more than one expansion in use as long as it makes sense in the particular use or context. Rules Also see Basic English ordered wordlist from Simple English Wikipedia. The word use of Basic English is similar to full English, but the rules are much simpler, and there are fewer exceptions. Not all meanings of each word are allowed. Ogden's rules of grammar for Basic English help people use the 850 words to talk about things and events in a normal way.[9] 1.Make plurals with an "S" on the end of the word. If there are special ways to make a plural word, such as "ES" and "IES", use them. 2.There are two word endings to change each of the 150 adjectives: -"ER" and -"EST". 3.There are two word endings to change the verb word endings, -"ING" and -"ED". 4.Make adverbs from qualifiers by adding -"LY". 5.Talk about amounts with "MORE" and "MOST." Use and know -"ER" and -"EST." 6.Make opposite adjectives with "UN"- 7.Make questions with the opposite word order, and with "DO". 8.Operators and pronouns conjugate as in normal English. 9.Make combined words (compounds) from two nouns (for example "milkman") or a noun and a directive (sundown). 10.Measures, numbers, money, days, months, years, clock time, and international words are in English forms, e.g. Date/Time: 20 May 1972 at 21:00 11.Use the words of an industry or science. For example, in this grammar, some special words are for teaching languages, and not part of Basic English: plural, conjugate, noun, adjective, adverb, qualifier, operator, pronoun, and directive.

Here are the Rules as given in the ABC: p. 10 Rule.When a word is used for two or more things of the same sort, an 's' is put at the end of it. There are four which make a change of form- foot (feet), tooth (teeth), man (men), woman (women).The sense of trousers and scissors makes it natural for them to have the  's' ending, but we may say "one leg of his trousers", or "one blade of the scissors". There is no change for sheep. note- In addition to the four changes of form,there may be some change in the last three letters (though the sound is much the same as if only 's' had been put at the end)of words ending in f, fe, y, s, x, sh, ch, or o, for writing. Here is the complete list- but you will probably be wise to make no attempt to get it into your head at this point: ( 1) Leaves, selves, shelves, knives. (2) All ending in y with a stopped sound (see p.174) before it (that is, all but boy, day, key, monkey, play, ray, tray, and way ) have the y changed into ies; as army, armies, and berry, berries. (3) All ending in s, x, sh, ch, or o have es at the end and not simply s; as arch, arches, and match, matches. Rule - (ibid-p. 40) The addition of ly to an 'adjective' makes it an  'adverb'. Note. Because of the sense or the sound, it is not possible to make this addition to every one of the 150 'adjectives' ,but over 100 have this regular ending. We do not say cut-ly (because of the sense), or parallel-ly (because of the strange sound). Tally, smally, and longly are not formed ; for like and same, which as we have seen, are not so freely used as the other 'adjectives', see The Basic Words. In writing the adverb forms from adjectives ending in y, the y is changed into ily ; for example, angrily, heathily. In addition, there is truly (from true); automatically, elastically, and electrically;ably,possibly,probably, and feebly. Rule.(ibid-p.54) Complex words are formed by putting together two names of things. Word-order and word-form are two which are being used in this book. Rule. (ibid-p.78) Statements of comparison are made by putting more and most in front of an 'adjective'. Though more and most may be used with any quality word, a certain number of these words take the endings -er, -est, which have a more natural sound to English ears. These are generally the shorter words like fat, long, red, true(Take note of the forms; fatter, flatter, redder, sadder, thinner, wetter.)  The learner will best get these into his head by reading and talking; the sense is the same whichever form is used. But it is necessary to give special attention to two words which are not regular;bad which makes comparisons with the forms worse and worst, and good, forming better and best. Little is another 'adverb' which has forms for comparison. These are less and least, and when used with names of qualities, they make the opposite end of the scale (017) to that whichis formed by more and most.(Note There are only three other 'adverbs' which do this trick: far, farther(further), farthest; near, neare, nearest; well better, best. In addition inner and outer are formed from in and out.) The only quality words about which statements of comparison are not made are those whose sense gives no suggestion of degree. Examples of these are first,last,male,female, same. Rule (ibid -p.82) 300 of the 600 names take the -er, -ing, -ed endings(018)(Note there are other words in the Basic List which take some of these endings.It is not necessary to have knowledge of them, but anyone with enough experience may make use of them- though naturally with great care in writing for learners. (ibid - p.97)In addition to the 300 names which take 3 endings, all the act-words ending in -ing may take -er in place of the -ing, and have a use as 'adjectives'. A 'builder' may be 'building' a building, a 'learner' may be 'learning' (learning)and so on. With them are grouped the -ing 'adjectives' of the same sort -boiling, hanging, living, and waiting. Please takes -er, -ing, -ed. There are six names of qualities with -er and -ing endings: clean, cut, dry, open, separate, and shut. 'Cleaning' is making clean, and a man who does this is a 'cleaner'. Anyone with the necessary knowledge of normal English may put -er, -ing onto other 'adjectives'. Here is a list of the 300 (ibid -88):

200 GENERAL NAMES act, air, answer, attack, attempt, back, balance,base, breath, burn, butter, cause, chalk, chance, change, cloth, coal, colour, comfort, condition, control, cook, copper, copy, cork, cough, cover, crack, credit, crush, cry, curve, damage, design, desire, detail, disgust, doubt, dust, edge, effect, end, exchange, experience, fear, fire, flower, fold, force, form, front, glass, grip, group, guide, harbour, hate, heat, help, hope, humour, ice, increase, ink, interest, iron, join, journey, judge, jump, kick, kiss, land, laugh, lead, letter, level, lift, light, limit, list, look, love, machine, mark, market, mass, measure, milk, mine, motion, move, name, need, note, number, offer, oil, order, ornament, page, pain, paint, paper, part, paste, place, plant, play, point, poison, polish, powder, price, print, produce, profit, protest, pull, purpose, push, question, rain, range, rate, ray, reason, record, regret, request, respect, rest, reward, roll, rub, rule, salt, scale, seat, sense, shade, shame, shock, side, sign, silver, slip, slope, smash, smile, smoke, sneeze, snow, soap, sort, sound, space, stage, start, steam, steel, step, stitch, stone, stop, stretch, sugar, support, surprise, talk, taste, tax, test, thunder, time, tin, top, touch, trade, transport, trick, trouble, turn, twist, unit, use, value, view, voice, walk, wash, waste, water, wave, wax, weather, weight, word, work, wound.

100 PICTURABLE THINGS arch, arm, band, bath, bed, board, bone, book, bottle, box, brain, branch, brick, bridge, brush, button, cake, card, cart, chain, circle, cloud, coat, comb, cord, curtain, cushion, drain, dress, drop, eye, face, farm, feather, finger, fish, floor, fork, frame, garden, glove, hammer, hand, hat, head, hook, house, jewel, key, knife, knot,line, lock, map, nail, nerve, net, pen, pencil, picture, pin, pipe, plane, plate, plough, pocket, pot, prison, pump, rail, receipt, ring, roof, root, sail, school, screw, seed, ship, shoe, shin, skirt, sponge. square, stamp, star, station, store, sun, thread, thumb, ticket, train, wall, watch, wheel, whip, whistle, wire, worm.

Un- may be used in addition with a number of the -ing and -ed forms

Criticism Like all international auxiliary languages (or IALs), Basic English may be criticised as unavoidably based on personal preferences, and thus, paradoxically, inherently divisive.[10] Moreover, like all natural language based IALs, Basic is subject to criticism as unfairly biased towards the native speaker community.[11] As a teaching aid for English as a Second Language, Basic English has been criticised for the choice of the core vocabulary and for its grammatical constraints.[12] In 1944, readability expert Rudolf Flesch published an article in Harper's Magazine, "How Basic is Basic English?" in which he claimed, "It's not basic, and it's not English." The basic complaint was that the vocabulary is too restricted, and, as a result, the text ends up being awkward and more difficult than necessary. He also notes that the words in the Basic vocabulary were arbitrarily selected, and there have been no empirical studies showing that it makes language simpler.[14]

From my perspective (that of a grammarian) the comment by Frye is in my opinion appropriate: The present book is not a work of Biblical scholarship, much less of theology: it expresses only my personal encounter with the Bible, and at no point does it speak with the authority of a scholarly consensus. .. Those instincts told me that the critical operation begins with reading a work straight through, as many times as may be necessary to possess it in totality. At that point the critic can begin to formulate a conceptual unity corresponding to the imaginative unity of his text (019 - pp xi-xii).

It is my opinion that the above criticisims do not grasp the unity of Basic English as a system.

Literary references In the novel The Shape of Things to Come, published in 1933, H. G. Wells depicted Basic English as the lingua franca of a new elite which after a prolonged struggle succeeds in uniting the world and establishing a totalitarian world government. In the future world of Wells' vision, virtually all members of humanity know this language. From 1942 to 1944 George Orwell was a proponent of Basic English, but in 1945 he became critical of universal languages. Basic English later inspired his use of Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four.[14] In his story "Gulf", science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein used a constructed language, in which every Basic English word is replaced with a single phoneme, as an appropriate means of communication for a race of genius supermen.[15 And also C. S. Lewis (018 -p.450)in The Cosmic Trilogy. See also Readability Plain English Simplified English International English General Service List Academic word list Bible in Basic English Controlled vocabulary References 1.^ Brutt-Griffler, Evans Davies, English and Ethnicity, Palgrave Macmillan,2006 2.^ Time Magazine. Dec. 31, 1945. Education: Globalingo 3.^ Edmond H Weiss The Elements of International English Style, pp. 17-18, M. E. Sharpe, 2005 ISBN 978-0-7656-1572-5 4.^ A good summary in Bill Templer: Towards a People's English: Back to BASIC in EIL Humanising Language Teaching. 5.^ See the list of words which are assumed and not counted for details. 6.^ Ogden's "International Word" List - Alphabetic 7.^ Ogden's Basic English Next Steps 8.^ Ogden's Basic English Combined Word Lists 9.^ "Rules of Grammar". January 1, 1996. Retrieved 2009-07-28. 10.^ Rick Harrison, Farewell to Auxiliary Languages 11.^ For instance, a sample quotation from the auxlang mailing list archives and another from noted linguist Robert A. Hall, Jr.. 12.^ For instance, by proponents of Essential World English. See a summary of EWE for instance and, again, the linguist Robert A. Hall, Jr.. 13.^ Flesch, R. F. "How Basic is Basic English?" Harper's Magazine, March 1944. pp. 339-343. 14.^ Illich, Ivan; Barry Sanders (1988) (in English language). ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind. San Francisco: North Point Press. pp. 109. ISBN 0-86547-291-2. "The satirical force with which Orwell used Newspeak to serve as his portrait of one of those totalitarian ideas that he saw taking root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere can be understood only if we remember that he speaks with shame about a belief that he formerly held... From 1942 to 1944, working as a colleague of William Empson's, he produced a series of broadcasts to India written in Basic English, trying to use its programmed simplicity, as a Tribune article put it, "as a sort of corrective to the oratory of statesmen and publicists." Only during the last year of the war did he write "Politics and the English Language," insisting that the defense of English language has  nothing to do with the setting up of a Standard English."" 15.^ Heinlein, Robert A., "Gulf", in Assignment in Eternity, published by Signet Science Fiction (New American Library), 1953. Page 52-53: "It was possible to establish a one-to-one relationship with Basic English so that one phonetic symbol was equivalent to an entire word". Further reading I. A. Richards & Christine Gibson, Learning Basic English: A Practical Handbook for English-Speaking People, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. (1945) Basic English: A Protest, Joseph Albert Lauwerys, F. J. Daniels, Robert A. Hall Jr., London: Basic English Foundation, 1966. An answer to Robert A. Hall, Jr.'s criticism.

Additional Further Reading Psyche, ed, C.K. Ogden for the editorials for the development of Basic and especially for the following articles: no. 37 -July 1929 for The Theory of Fictionsw (written as Adelyne More) - January, 1930 for the editorial in which "the publication of the theoretical background, psychological and linguistic, of Basic English reaches its penultimate stage" and the article "Opposition" in which one of the main qualities of Basic is analysed into scale, cut, direction and attraction and repulsion (written as Adelyne More). Volume XVIII, 1938-1952 For the editorial The Origins of Archetypation; Retrospective; Can you see Space? and the articles Word Magic and Useful and Entertaining Knowledge and the article by J.O. Anderson; Why did Plato Write the Cratylus? C.K. Ogden and Linguistics, 5 Volumes ISBN 0415 103533. This series contains reprints of some of Ogden's work, useful introductions by W. Terrence Gordon and the concluding volume contains a useful selection of critical articles and in particulr John A. Oesterle, Another Approach to the Problem of Meaning and John Paul Russo, Semantics. Dictionaries (not previously cited) 1)The General Basic English Dictionary: giving more than 40,000 senses of over 20,000 words in basic English, Under the direction od C.K. Ogden With the help of a Committee of The Orthological Institute, The Hokseido Press(c)1960 by Othological Institute, Thirty-first impression 1992, Japan 2) The Basic Dictionary of Science, Edited in Basic English for The Orthological Institute by E.C. Graham, The Macmillan Company, New York1966 Other Works by C.K. Ogden (not previously cited) Debabelization: With a Survey of Contemporary Opinion on the Problem of a Universal Language (1931),Basic English versus The Artificial Languages,(1935), Brighter Basic: Examples of Basic English for Young Persons of Taste And Feeling (1935), and Basic for Science : With the Help of a Committee of the Orthological Institute, (1942) all, London,Kegan PaulTrench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. Broadway House, Carter Lane E.C. Nonfiction Books in Basic English. The New Testament in Basic English The New Testament in Basic English, Cambridge at the University Press in Association with Evans Brothers, Ltd.,1941 (Copyrighted in the United States of America by E.P. Dutton & Co., New York. Eleanor Wealey Nolan, The Post Bag, Produced for The Orthological Institute, Cambrige by Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd.,(n.d. book 14 in the Changing Times Series) Eric Berry, The Potter's Wheel, Published for The Orthological Institute by The Basic English Publishing Company, 10 King's Parade, Cambridge (n.d. Book 16 in the Our Changing Times in Basic English, under the direction of C.K. Ogden W. Repton, The Potter's Art, Published for The Orthological Institute by The Basic English Publishing Company, 45, Gordon Square, London, W.C.1, 1953 Books of Fiction in Basic English Leonard Frank, Carl and Anna, Translated into Basic English by L.W. Lockhart, London, 1930. J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas, Put into Basic by Margaret Bottrall, Published for the Orthological Institute by The Basic English Publishing Company, 45 Gordon Square, London, W.C.1, 1951 External links

Simple English edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Appendix:Basic English word list in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Charles Kay Ogden, Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar, London: Paul Treber Charles Kay Ogden, Basic English and Grammatical Reform, Cambridge: The Orthological Institute. (1937). ogden.basic-english.org Ogden's books and wordlists online and several discussions. www.basic-english.org Ongoing project to support and update Ogden's Basic (with downloads). THE REFERENCE SHELF Vol. 17. No. 1 A discussion about Basic English, with supporters and critics. VOA News - Voice of America Special English - News Radio for English Learners Online tool which might help you to write Basic English texts - Detect words which are not in some dictionary. Ogden's Basic English dictionary list included. Essential World English - some criticisms of Basic English and suggestions for overcoming its problems

[show] v t e Word lists by frequency (and number of words)

[show] v t e Dialects and accents of Modern English by continent