The Basic English (for is a very small subset (850 words) of the English language which forms in itself a new language. This simplified English is the result of an explicit strategy of dissemination of the English language internationally. Franais qualifiers Business or Basic Franais really spread after the Second World War.

One goal of this project was to provide a language quickly and easily assimilated by the peoples from colonization. According to B. Lecherbonnier . The Basic Franais based on a voluntary simplification of language in terms of lexicon - reduced to 850 words - as well as on the syntactic level (syntactic difficulties inherent in modern English have been simplified). The success of this simplified English, considered also as "the most terrifying weapon in the modern era" has also justified the existence of a similar attempt for the French language, but the project was abandoned .

This language is the result of the work, begun in 1934 , of Ogden , assisted by Richards and Graham. Part of the work on the basic was conducted at the Harvard University who published major works (books, films, sound recordings, etc..) for his release.

This simplified English remains fully compatible with the normal English, it does not follow the rules without change from the English language and is adaptable to the point where it was possible to fully and faithfully translate the Bible (besides many other books) in Basic Franais.

However, the emergence of Basic Franais was also quickly condemned. The intellectual and writer George Orwell was its detractors. The writer, who had a passion notorious "for English and ", had initially expressed interest in the Basic Franais. Indeed, as a first step of his thinking, Orwell conceived as the Basic Franais promising greater transparency of language, as written by Jean-Jacques Courtine :

"Orwell had repeatedly expressed its interest in this attempt. He seemed to have accepted that the "translation" of an English sentence in Basic, according to the simplicity of the latter, get rid of the excess which could encumber: ascetic in its transparency, the Basic Franais deflate misleading rhetoric and dispel the darkness of figures of speech. Control of meaning and truth of the statements would be finally possible. "

If the invention by Orwell's Newspeak in 1984 is well and truly on linguistic principles he observed in totalitarian discourse of the 1940s , the intention of the writer is to account for the processes that actually observed already in his own language. According to Jean-Jacques Courtine, in fact, the idea of Newspeak in Orwell came with the release of Basic Franais. Newspeak is therefore for a satire of Orwell Basic Franais and shows how it had dramatically shifted illusory claims that could include a transparent language, "Orwell shows how the desire for a transparent language may end in the worst of darkness " .

Basic Principles of English

The basics of basic are:

• the General Basic Franais Dictionary, providing more than 40,000 over the meaning of 20 000 English words (normal) totally redefined using only the basic words (published under the direction of Charles Kay Ogden )

• The Basic Dictionary of Science, edited as well (using only 850 words to define the basic terms and expressions 25 000 scientists) by Graham.

and various educational books explaining grammar easy to use vocabulary intentionally limited (Ogden originally thought to 500 words) to give almost unlimited possibilities of expression, standardized extensions (doubling, taking them all, vocabulary) for special features, such religious terms, etc..

• The Pocket Book of Basic Franais equivalent title Franais Through Pictures of Richards and Christine Gibson. The two books are virtually identical. The first title was the subject of several publications, with or without aid multilingual (recommendations, user vocabulary lists with transliteration of pronunciation for each language), in paperback and treats approximately 500 words of basic and major linguistic method using only the image. The second title is the same publication in the context of the work at Harvard University. It is then accompanied by books application jobs and records.

Some of these books are exhausted and are available in libraries.

References

See also

Related articles

• English Simplified
• Globish
• French basic

External link

• (En) (en) (de) The Basic English by CK Ogden

• Language portal

Leave a Reply

Frequently Asked Questions