Basic English
Information: Basic English is a simplified
form of English and consists of 850 words.
It was developed in the late 1920's by the English psychologist Charles
Kay Ogden. His idea was to have non-English-speaking persons
study Basic English and to promote the language as an international language.
One difficulty was the complicated English spelling and grammar.
The principle of Basic English is that each idea, no matter how complex,
can be reduced to simple parts and thus be expressed by a limited number
of words. Among the 850 words are 600 nouns (that express things or events),
150 adjectives (for qualities) and 100 operational words, especially verbs
and prepositions. 60% of all words had only one syllable.
A group of 18 basic verbs such as make, get, do, have, and be were always
used in combination with prepositions like up, among, under, in and forward.
E.g. go up was used instead of ascend.
