Basic English [British American Scientific International Commercial English](1) is a simplified form of the English language created by the educator and linguist Charles Kay Ogden in the late 1920s and popularized in the 1930s and 1940s. According to Ogden, Basic English is “a complete answer to the need for an international communication language. In addition, it is the best first step to full English”(2), hence its use in the development of EFL methodologies still nowadays. But “there was from the beginning an ambiguity in the Basic English project: was it really intended as a neutral lingua franca or merely a means of promoting the position of natural English in the world?”(3).

Ogden carefully selected a vocabulary of 850 essential words – that corresponds to 20.000 words of normal English – and 10 grammatical rules, which could fit in only one sheet of paper. These few words could paraphrase the meaning of many others when combined, such as the use of the verb forms “to go in” and “to come near” instead of "to enter" and "to approach". But this was also one of its weaknesses, since the use of a restricted vocabulary required “considerable juggling to express many ideas” (4), such as "make out the sense of" instead of "understand". In some cases, it would be easier to learn more words.

1. Webster (1997) Webster's New World - College Dictionary

2. Baugh & Cable (1994) A history of the English Language

3. Graddol (1996) Redesigning English: new texts, new identities

4. Störig (2003) A aventura das línguas – Uma história dos idiomas do mundo

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

1) Basic English Institute
This site has a detailed description of Basic English with a summary of Ogden’s book and links to various texts on the subject – written by Ogden and other authors – besides literary texts in Basic English. It has information on how to teach this language and also about events, projects and links to download translators to Basic English, spell checkers and word lists.

2) Basic English – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This page shows a brief summary on the subject, the 10 rules of the language and an appendix with the 850-word list. Besides, there are historical references on the use of Basic English and a list of related links: other kinds of constructed languages, a Bible in Basic English and a picture wordlist.

3) Basic English
Here we can find some information which is similar to the ones in Wikipedia with the wordlist divided into five categories and some related links.

4) Christopher Hogan: Basic English
A webpage with the Basic English wordlist divided into five categories, the list of rules and a list of idioms.

5) Basic English Wordlist
This is a page with the wordlist of Basic English taken from another website for people who want to create languages. It states that Basic English wordlist is “Less useful in language building, due to the polysemy (many meanings) of each word listed”.

6) Basic English and Grammatical Reform, 1937, C. K. Ogden
A text about Basic English that talks about spelling, syntax, education, translation, problems of standardization, etc.

7) Helps In Writing Simple English Or Basic English Texts
This is a tool which helps writing simple texts in English or in Basic English, highlighting the words that are considered to be difficult.

8) Basic English – Encyclopedia Britannica
This is an article about Basic English taken from Encyclopedia Britannica to which you can have free access during a certain period of time.

9) Basic Anglo-Saxon English
This page presents Basic Anglo-Saxon English, which is a simplification of Ogden’s Basic English that eliminates its Romance terms.

10) Basic English Discussion Board
This site is written in Japanese, however, it is possible to read two versions of the same text, one in Standard English, and the other in Basic English.


Bibles

Basic Bible in English
A Bible in Basic English which brings a very brief summary on this constructed language and explains the adaptations made in it in order to make its “translation”.

Bíblia Online
This is a Brazilian website which has the Bible in Basic English; however, it does not give any explanation on the simplified language.

HTML Bible Index
Online Parallel Bible
The Holy Bible
These are more examples of Bibles in Basic English. However, these websites also do not explain anything about the language.
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