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Ogden's Basic English
- dimatter 6y agoimo, the website is utterly confusing as an educational resource
- Angostura 6y agoAgreed, that contents page is oof. But given that it was last updated in 2012, I doubt it is something that will change. It's dead Jim.
- roschdal 6y agoI wish someone would do the same for Russian: Basic Русский
- 082349872349872 6y agoI listen to pop music. There's probably a high overall vocabulary count, but (a) lyric sites are a thing, and (b) the common words are really common. сердце, очи, люблю, руки, и.т.д.
- yboris 6y agoI know probably fewer than 10 words in Spanish, but the #1 is "corazón" :P
- yboris 6y agoMy favorite feature of Russian that has no analogue in English is the variety of prefixes that can, for example, add direction to a verb: приехал переехал подехал (prefix before the word "drive" makes it "arrive", "drive over", "just arrived"). The beauty is that these prefixes, being universal, can be added to just about any word adding a flavor you may not have even experienced. Using the same prefixes before a vulgar word makes Russian, perhaps, the most versatile language for cursing.
- bausano_michael 6y agoWe've got that in Czech too, it's a nice feature of Slavic languages.
- 082349872349872 6y agofan-effing-tastic!
- lxe 6y ago> has no analogue in English English uses prepositions instead to modify meaning, as you described. приехал literal "drove in" переехал "drove over" подъехал "drove up" > can be added to just about any word adding a flavor you may not have even experienced That's definitely true. this makes translating from russian lose quite a lot of color.
- ben_w 6y agoLikewise for all languages. 850 words is plausible effort for tourism, 25,000 isn’t.
- rvba 6y agoDo you know any good resource to first learn Cyrillic alphabet?
- 082349872349872 6y agoI knew greek before, which has substantial overlap. Flashcards would probably be the fastest method, but I'm not cramming, so to pick up the rest of the characters, I: - watched the relevant episodes of Спокойной ночи, малыши for letterforms and pronunciation. (phonic segment is about midway through, nearly always at the same time, IIRC) - read plenty. VK memes at first, news headlines for the proper nouns later. - watched lyric music videos to work on reading speed.
- btilly 6y agoDuolingo is good at teaching Cyrillic. Be warned, though, that it takes a while for an English speaker to recognize the difference between hard consonants and soft consonants. In fact I got the point where I didn't think that I could tell, but was able to successfully guess 10x in a row. I got them right, but it really felt like I had no idea. Very weird experience.
- nt2h9uh238h 6y agoI would love to see this in Spanish or Mandarin
- AQXt 6y agoI would love to see this in Dutch and many other languages!
- dvduval 6y agoKnowledge of 3000 characters in Chinese is enough to read about 99% of text. Many words use two characters. Then there are Chengyu which are generally 4 characters and are derived from an old story. 850 characters would definitely be enough to communicate, and word creation by combining characters together is more flexible than English. Since every character can be a word, it's a little trickier to define what 850 words would mean, as 850 characters gets you thousands more words.
- oh_sigh 6y agoJust use a word frequency table and take the top 1000, power through memorizing them, and then learn some basic grammar
- nt2h9uh238h 6y agoyou can use deepl.com to translate it to different languages instantly :)
- lprd 6y agoIs there a French equivalent anywhere?
- bitcoinofficial 6y agoIt has a section on the same site for French (and also German): http://ogden.basic-english.org/fbasice.html http://ogden.basic-english.org/fbasice.html
- 082349872349872 6y agoThose are sections in french and german, for basic english. For basic french (~A2?) try Le Petit Nicolas. http://www.petitnicolas.com/collection/albums http://www.petitnicolas.com/collection/albums (for francophones who wish to try something different: http://www.petitnicolas.com/collection/albums#collection-langues-de-france http://www.petitnicolas.com/collection/albums#collection-lan... )
- oakmad 6y agoThe FAQ (http://www.basic-english.org/learn/duff.html http://www.basic-english.org/learn/duff.html) says "See Charles Duff who uses Basic English as the basis for other languages." which include French but I cant seem to find any online or ebook versions
- riffraff 6y agoIIUC, this is close to the english used by the Simple English Wikipedia[0], though it's 1000 words vs 850. See also, "Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words"[1] by Randall Munroe (the xkcd author), which explains things using the same set of words. [0] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Simple_English https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Simple_Eng... [1] https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/ https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/
- brownbat 6y agoOrwell and HG Wells were both really taken by Basic English at first, with Wells arguing it could help build a singular world government. Orwell later became cynical about it, focusing on its lack of any words for things like "revolution." It became an inspiration for newspeak in 1984. (I honestly think this particular concern was a bit of a straw man of Wells' and Ogden's optimistic views, a lingua franca used in a few settings doesn't have to be a straightjacket for all contexts. But it made 1984, so maybe fine in the end.)
- dash2 6y agoJust found rule 5: Negative adjectives are formed with "UN"- Double plus ungood, citizen!
- booleandilemma 6y agoYour comment gave me good bellyfeel.
- AQXt 6y agoThe vocabulary is designed to deal with two distinct levels: 1. The 850 words sufficient for ordinary communications to idiomatic English. 2. By the addition of 100 words required for general science, and 50 for any particular science I guess "revolution" would be one of the words in political science?
- ravi-delia 6y agoThe wonderful thing about having a language with a handful of core words and endless composition is that you never lack a word for anything. Make-un-government I'd expect.
- wsc981 6y ago> The wonderful thing about having a language with a handful of core words and endless composition is that you never lack a word for anything. Make-un-government I'd expect. It seems the Thai language is a bit like that. Some examples: - good => 'dee' - not => 'mai' - bad => 'mai dee' (not good) - much => 'mak' - great => 'dee mak' (good much) - study => 'rian' - theater => 'rong' - school => 'rong rian' (theater study) - work => 'ngaan' - factory => 'rong ngaan' (theater work) - movies => 'phapyon' - cinema => 'rong phapyon' (theater movies) - nurse => 'phayabaan' - hospital => 'rong phayabaan' (theater nurse) - food => 'ahan' - store => 'ran' - restaurant => 'ran ahan' (store food) - trade => 'khaa' - shop => 'ran khaa' (store trade) - motor => 'yon' - carriage => 'rod' - car => 'rod yon' (carriage motor) - fire => 'fai' - train => 'rod fai' (carriage fire) - carry => 'bantuk' - truck => 'rod bantuk' (carriage carry) - room => 'hong' - water => 'naam' - toilet => 'hong naam' (room water) - sleep => 'noon' - bedroom => 'hong noon' (room sleep) - underground => 'taidin' - cellar => 'hong taidin' (room underground) - sit => 'nang' - play => 'len' - living room => 'hong nang len' (room sit play) - dog => 'ma' - forest => 'pa' - wolf => 'ma pa' (dog forest) - tiger => 'sauw' - black => 'dam' - panther => 'sauw dam' (tiger black)
- bloak 6y agoRestricted subsets of a language are a useful concept, for some purposes, but Basic English itself is not a very good example. For example, if I remember correctly, Basic English doesn't allow the word "tolerate" but does allow "put up with". That's a false economy. Also, the "850" is deceptive advertising because there are various categories of word that are allowed in addition to the 850 words listed.
- AQXt 6y ago> Basic English doesn't allow the word "tolerate" but does allow "put up with". That's a false economy. That's a very good point! "Put up with" is an idiomatic expression that native speakers may take for granted -- but it must be learned, in the same way as "tolerate". In fact, it would be easier for half of the world to learn the word "tolerate", from the Latin "toleratus", than the expression "put up with". (For instance: we use the word "tolerar" in Porguese and Spanish.)
- marci 6y agoThere's also tolérer in french, tolerieren in german.
- Jabbles 6y agoIndeed - the OED gives 419 senses of the verb "put", including as varied as to put (a person or animal) out of (his or her) misery Cricket. (a) (Of a fielder or wicketkeeper) to hit or break (a wicket), dislodging a bail; to put one's feet up
- gotostatement 6y agoI think `faire` is kind of the same in French - in various phrasal settings, it feels like an all-purpose verb for taking any sort of action. Although I guess that's more like 'do' which also has a bajillion uses in different contexts
- colanderman 6y agoPhrasal verbs (such as "put up with") are one of the more frustrating parts of English to un-learn when trying to learn a foreign language. (I assume they're at least as frustrating to learn when learning English as well.) A well-known Esperantist, Tim Morley, gives a great talk on phrasal verbs (which, Esperanto having none, tend to trip up English speakers learning it). Here it is in English: https://youtu.be/eQ_hXML4nWg?t=671 https://youtu.be/eQ_hXML4nWg?t=671 (I highly recommend the first half of that video too, on "quite", for its humor value.)
- abnry 6y agoReminds me of Toki Pona, "The Language of Good". [1] The idea is that it consists of a small set of core words, and every other concept is expressed as compound compositions of those words. I've never learned it, but I find it instructive as a way to think about language. That is, many words are actually derived from multiple simpler words. It is fascinating to think what those core concepts relating to the human experience and human need to use language are. [1] https://tokipona.org/ https://tokipona.org/
- Complexicate 6y agomi ken toki kepeken toki pona. taso ijo sona la ona li ike. mi wile sitelen e lipu sona la mi ken ala pali pona e ona. taso jan li wile toki lon pilin lon ijo pona la jan li ken toki e ni kepeken toki pona. Translation: I can talk using Toki Pona. But (in the context of) knowledge thing, it bad. (In the context of) me want to write knowledge documents, I cannot do it well. But (in the context of) people want to talk about feelings and about good/simple things, people can talk this using Toki Pona.
- bitcurious 6y agoSpeaking of feelings, I think you underestimate their complexity. Poetry was essentially invented because our vocabulary, for all its breadth, fails to convey exactly what we mean.
- shakna 6y agoThe now-famous book from Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham, originated with a bet that he couldn't write a complete bestselling book with just 50 words. These 50: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you You can achieve a surprising amount with shockingly little language.
- jszymborski 6y agoYou know, the Ogden Basic Word list is really useful when you want to name <30,000 things. You can combine (150 Qualities) * (200 picturable words) to get easy-to-spell and memorable identifiers. Of course there are larger lists, but this one has the "easy-to-spell" and "memorable" characteristics that most lists won't give you.
- bigbubba 6y agoTrying to adhere to this is a nightmare. The amount of time required to reinvent common words even most ESL speakers know anyway is absurd. But hey, at least you can't say 'murder of crows' right? I know how much that annoys some of you. --- Going after this idea be rough. The amount of time needed to form common words even almost every new language person gets be foolish. But you be unable to say 'cause-death of black birds' right? I have knowledge that some of you protest that word.
- Chazifraz 6y agoFunnily enough, the word "basic" is missing from the word list. The English language needs more than these 850 words just to describe this project.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y agoI guess Ogden hadn't heard of Godel's proof, which was around the same time. Ironic indeed.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago"GET" is such a confusing word. I was on a bus with a man who was leaning English and he asked me to explain "get". His English was already limited, and explaining the diversity of meanings made me grow to hate the word.
- Aachen 6y agoYes. Some people use it wrong in a professional setting and it's really hard to correct without basically building a blacklist of cases where they used it wrong.
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- philosophygeek 6y agoHas anyone tried to write an algorithm that translates any piece of text into "basic English." That seems like a tractable problem, since it's just mapping all the words in English and grammatical structures into Ogden's 850 words and rules.
- kabdib 6y agoA language translation target would be kind of fun. I wonder how much of modern idiomatic english could be successfully machine translated . . . or even translated using meatware?
- awavering 6y agoIn the Land of Invented Languages¹ is a great read if you want to learn more about artificial languages like Basic English, Lojban², or Blissymbolics³. 1. http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/ http://inthelandofinventedlanguages.com/ 2. https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Lojban https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Lojban 3. https://www.blissymbolics.org/ https://www.blissymbolics.org/
- 082349872349872 6y agoLojban Wikipedia has an entry for "Revolution": https://jbo.wikipedia.org/wiki/sutra_binxo https://jbo.wikipedia.org/wiki/sutra_binxo
- gorjusborg 6y agoI think it would be hard to communicate nuance concisely with such a small vocabulary.
- Aachen 6y agoOkay, but have you tried? Did you read of anyone else who tried and found that to be the case? I'm sure it'd take getting used to for proficient speakers like you and me, perhaps not dissimilar from learning a dialect, but is it inferior?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]