4 ms·

My first thought when starting to read about this was xkcd's Thing Explainer. But will this carry all the meanings (including cultural ones) of those words to

My first thought when starting to read about this was xkcd's Thing Explainer. But will this carry all the meanings (including cultural ones) of those words to the translations to other languages ?

addaon 5y ago
Also simple English, which has a surprisingly complete wikipedia translation (https://simple.wikipedia.org/ https://simple.wikipedia.org/).
- gumby 5y ago
  Yea, I was wondering what the differences were when I read this article. I hadn’t previously heard about Minimal English, while I had heard of Simple English.
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  There’s also ASD-STE100[1], a standard apparently for technical documentation and ATC communcation(?), though while it is designed to assist ESL learners, it probably doesn’t exactly count as simple from a native reading-level perspective. Also, this is the second[2] thread today that merits a mention of Steele’s Growing a language[3]! [1] https://asd-ste100.org/ https://asd-ste100.org/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481035 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481443
Animats 5y ago
No. Read "Orwell, the Lost Writings", in which he discusses his job during WWII - translating the BBC news into Simple English for broadcast to the Colonies (mostly India and Hong Kong). He discovered that translating to Simple English required pounding out any political nuances into plain language, and that doing so was itself a political act. That was the genesis of Newspeak in "1984".
CRConrad 5y ago
> My first thought when starting to read about this was xkcd's Thing Explainer. Mine too. Some links: https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/ https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/ https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Thing-Explainer https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Thing-Explainer https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.02457.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.02457.pdf

My first thought when starting to read about this was xkcd's Thing Explainer. But will this carry all the meanings (including cultural ones) of those words to the translations to other languages ?

addaon 5y ago

Also simple English, which has a surprisingly complete wikipedia translation (https://simple.wikipedia.org/ https://simple.wikipedia.org/).

gumby 5y ago
Yea, I was wondering what the differences were when I read this article. I hadn’t previously heard about Minimal English, while I had heard of Simple English.
mananaysiempre 5y ago
There’s also ASD-STE100[1], a standard apparently for technical documentation and ATC communcation(?), though while it is designed to assist ESL learners, it probably doesn’t exactly count as simple from a native reading-level perspective. Also, this is the second[2] thread today that merits a mention of Steele’s Growing a language[3]! [1] https://asd-ste100.org/ https://asd-ste100.org/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481035 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30481443

Animats 5y ago

No. Read "Orwell, the Lost Writings", in which he discusses his job during WWII - translating the BBC news into Simple English for broadcast to the Colonies (mostly India and Hong Kong). He discovered that translating to Simple English required pounding out any political nuances into plain language, and that doing so was itself a political act. That was the genesis of Newspeak in "1984".

CRConrad 5y ago

> My first thought when starting to read about this was xkcd's Thing Explainer. Mine too. Some links: https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/ https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/ https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Thing-Explainer https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Thing-Explainer https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.02457.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.02457.pdf