English vocabulary 2 - OGDEN's BASIC ENGLISH
Combien de mots faut-il connaître pour pouvoir comprendre et s'exprimer en anglais ? Si presque tout le monde se pose la question un jour ou l'autre, il est un linguiste anglais qui se l'est posée tellement intensément qu'il y a apporté une réponse qui aujourd'hui encore sert de référence. C.K. Odgen (1889-1957), linguiste anglais, a introduit le concept de "simple english". D'après lui, un corpus de 850 mots devait suffire à exprimer l'essentiel de la pensée humaine, décrire la vie de tous les jours, et même permettre les relations internationales. Il suffit d'ajouter quelque 150 mots pour aborder le domaine scientifique, une cinquantaine de mots par discipline scientifique et un corpus d'un millier de mots suffit pour des colloques scientifiques internationaux. Son ambition était que cette simplification permette à l'anglais de devenir la seconde langue du monde entier, idée qui plaisait beaucoup à Churchill et à Roosevelt (et qui semblerait bien s'être réalisée depuis!).
Celles et ceux qui s'intéressent à la façon dont ce corpus minimal a été défini, et aux nombreux ouvrages publiés par C.K. Odgen sur le sujet, pourront en lire plus ICI.
Quant à la liste elle-même, elle se trouve ICI mais il est facile de la reproduire ci-après.
OGDEN's BASIC ENGLISH
Word List - in His Order
OPERATIONS - 100 words
come, get, give, go, keep, let, make, put, seem, take, be, do, have, say, see, send, may, will,
about, across, after, against, among, at, before, between, by, down, from, in, off, on, over, through, to, under, up, with,
as, for, of, till, than,
a , the, all, any, every, little, much, no, other, some, such, that, this, I , he, you, who,
and, because, but, or, if, though, while, how, when, where, why,
again, ever, far, forward, here, near, now, out, still, then, there, together, well,
almost, enough, even, not, only, quite, so, very, tomorrow, yesterday,
north, south, east, west, please, yes .
THINGS - 400 General words
account, act, addition, adjustment, advertisement, agreement, air, amount, amusement, animal, answer, apparatus, approval, argument, art, attack, attempt, attention, attraction, authority, back, balance, base, behavior, belief, birth, bit, bite, blood, blow, body, brass, bread, breath, brother, building, burn, burst, business, butter, canvas, care, cause, chalk, chance, change, cloth, coal, color, comfort, committee, company, comparison, competition, condition, connection, control, cook, copper, copy, cork, cotton, cough, country, cover, crack, credit, crime, crush, cry ,current, curve, damage, danger, daughter, day, death, debt, decision, degree, design, desire, destruction, detail, development, digestion, direction, discovery, discussion, disease, disgust, distance, distribution, division, doubt, drink, driving, dust, earth, edge, education, effect, end, error, event, example, exchange, existence, expansion, experience, expert, fact, fall, family, father, fear, feeling, fiction, field, fight, fire, flame, flight, flower, fold, food, force, form, friend, front, fruit, glass, gold, government, grain, grass, grip, group, growth, guide, harbor, harmony, hate, hearing, heat, help, history, hole, hope, hour, humor, ice, idea, impulse, increase, industry, ink, insect, instrument, insurance, interest, invention, iron, jelly, join, journey, judge, jump, kick, kiss, knowledge, land, language, laugh, law, lead, learning, leather, letter, level, lift, light, limit, linen, liquid, list, look, loss, love, machine, man, manager, mark, market, mass, meal, measure, meat, meeting, memory, metal, middle, milk, mind, mine, minute, mist, money, month, morning ,mother, motion, mountain, move, music, name, nation, need, news, night, noise, note, number, observation, offer, oil, operation, opinion, order, organization, ornament, owner, page, pain, paint, paper, part, paste, payment, peace, person, place, plant, play, pleasure, point, poison, polish, porter, position, powder, power, price, print, process, produce, profit, property, prose, protest, pull, punishment, purpose, push, quality, question, rain, range, rate, ray, reaction, reading, reason, record, regret, relation, religion, representative, request, respect, rest, reward, rhythm, rice, river, road, roll, room, rub, rule, run, salt, sand, scale, science, sea, seat, secretary, selection, self, sense, servant, sex, shade, shake, shame, shock, side, sign, silk, silver, sister, size, sky, sleep, slip, slope, smash, smell, smile, smoke, sneeze, snow, soap, society, son, song, sort, sound, soup, space, stage, start, statement, steam, steel, step, stitch, stone, stop, story, stretch, structure, substance, sugar, suggestion, summer, support, surprise, swim, system, talk, taste, tax, teaching, tendency, test, theory, thing, thought, thunder, time, tin, top, touch, trade, transport, trick, trouble, turn, twist, unit, use, value, verse, vessel, view, voice, walk, war, wash, waste, water, wave, wax, way, weather, week, weight, wind, wine, winter, woman, wood, wool, word, work, wound, writing , year .THINGS - 200 Picturable words - picture list
angle, ant, apple, arch, arm, army, baby, bag, ball, band, basin, basket, bath, bed, bee, bell, berry, bird, blade, board, boat, bone, book, boot, bottle, box, boy, brain, brake, branch, brick, bridge, brush, bucket, bulb, button, cake, camera, card, cart, carriage, cat, chain, cheese, chest, chin, church, circle, clock, cloud, coat, collar, comb, cord, cow, cup, curtain, cushion, dog, door, drain, drawer, dress, drop, ear, egg, engine, eye, face, farm, feather, finger, fish, flag, floor, fly, foot, fork, fowl, frame, garden, girl, glove, goat, gun, hair, hammer, hand, hat, head, heart, hook, horn, horse, hospital, house, island, jewel, kettle, key, knee, knife, knot, leaf, leg, library, line, lip, lock, map, match, monkey, moon, mouth, muscle, nail, neck, needle, nerve, net, nose, nut, office, orange, oven, parcel, pen, pencil, picture, pig, pin, pipe, plane, plate, plough/plow, pocket, pot, potato, prison, pump, rail, rat, receipt, ring, rod, roof, root, sail, school, scissors, screw, seed, sheep, shelf, ship, shirt, shoe, skin, skirt, snake, sock, spade, sponge, spoon, spring, square, stamp, star, station, stem, stick, stocking, stomach, store, street, sun, table, tail, thread, throat, thumb, ticket, toe, tongue, tooth, town, train, tray, tree, trousers, umbrella, wall, watch, wheel, whip, whistle, window, wing, wire, worm .QUALITIES - 100 General
able, acid, angry, automatic, beautiful, black, boiling, bright, broken, brown, cheap, chemical, chief, clean, clear, common, complex, conscious, cut, deep, dependent, early, elastic, electric, equal, fat, fertile, first, fixed, flat, free, frequent, full, general, good, great, grey/gray, hanging, happy, hard, healthy, high, hollow, important, kind, like, living, long, male, married, material, medical, military, natural, necessary, new, normal, open, parallel, past, physical, political, poor, possible, present, private, probable, quick, quiet, ready, red, regular, responsible, right, round, same, second, separate, serious, sharp, smooth, sticky, stiff, straight, strong, sudden, sweet, tall, thick, tight, tired, true, violent, waiting, warm, wet, wide, wise, yellow, young .QUALITIES - 50 Opposites
awake, bad, bent, bitter, blue, certain, cold, complete, cruel, dark, dead, dear, delicate, different, dirty, dry, false, feeble, female, foolish, future, green, ill, last, late, left, loose, loud, low, mixed, narrow, old, opposite, public, rough, sad, safe, secret, short, shut, simple, slow, small, soft, solid, special, strange, thin, white, wrong .On observera qu'elle comporte 200 mots "illustrables" (le lien dans la liste renvoie à la version originale publiée par Odgen). La version en "simple English" de l'encyclopédie en ligne Wikipedia en a reconstitué une version plus moderne, en couleur, que vous trouverez ICI.
La simple English Wikipedia est une version simplifiée de Wikipedia, rédigée en "simple English", pour un public d'enfants, d'étudiants, d'apprenants dont l'anglais n'est pas la langue maternelle, et de lecteurs aux capacités réduites. Le "simple English" dépasse un peu les 850 mots d'Odgen, qui sont définis ici comme "basic English".
Je vous renvoie à trois pages de référence :
la page d'accueil : cliquez ici.
la page d'explication sur le concept de simple English sur lequel repose l'encyclopédie : cliquez ici.
l'article sur le basic English d'Odgen : cliquez ici.
Il existe sur le web de nombreux outils qui font usage de cette liste. J'en citerai un ici qui me semble très utile. Il s'agit d'un programme qui scanne un texte donné pour identifier tous les mots qui y apparaissent, pour les marquer ensuite selon un critère très simple : s'ils font partie du corpus des 850, rien ne se passe pour eux, sinon, le programme crée un lien vers l'article correspondant dans le dictionnaire de l'encyclopédie wikipedia, le wiktionary (encore une variante, que j'aurais dû mentionner dans les dictionnaires d'anglais).
Testez
Helps In Writing Simple English Or Basic English Texts
Si on veut voir ce que ça donne, voici le résultat pour l'article auquel renvoie le lien sur Churchil plus haut dans ce message : sur chaque mot ne faisant pas partie de la liste des 850, un lien vers sa définition dans le wiktionary a été créé par le programme : il n'y a plus qu'à cliquer pour voir la définition. Reste à voir si vous la comprenez ou si vous devrez également filtrer la traduction avec l'outil en question...On 5 September 1943 Winston Churchill was awarded an honorary degree at Harvard University. He used the occasion to deliver a typically resonant and stirring speech on Anglo -American unity. He called the "gift of a common tongue" a priceless inheritance and suggested that in order to spread the common language even more widely throughout the globe, "some months ago I persuaded the Ministers to study and report upon Basic English. Here you have a plan. There are others but here you have a very carefully wrought plan for an international language capable of a very wide transaction for practical business and interchange of ideas. The whole of it is composed of about 650 nouns and 200 verbs or other parts of speech — no more indeed than can be written on one side of a single sheet of paper."
Basic English was created by C.K. Odgen (1889-1957) an academic who was recognized by A.J.P. Taylor as one of the great British " troublemakers " of the early twentieth century. There was periodic interest in it as an international language but it faced many competitors , such as Esperanto .
Churchill was a natural for it. His speeches , which served to stir and inspire his listeners and which so exactly reflected their passions were couched in language which was magnificent in its studied simplicity. In both its spoken and its written form his eloquence derived much of its impact from the unexpected turn of the common phrase and the use of the precisely appropriate yet familiar word. He pleaded for brevity , clarity, cogency and urged senior officers to read Fowler’s Modern English Usage. He also recognized the utility of Basic English. While Martin Gilbert has presented him as the quintessential Tory Democrat, the cornerstone of whose ideology was not the blind pursuit and stubborn retention of imperial conquest but rather the stalwart defence of democratic values both in Britain and in British- controlled territory, it remains undeniable that Churchill was from his youth and remained a "big Englander ." He clung to the belief that the British colonial structure was fundamentally beneficent and might be imposed , even upon unwilling subjects , if it could be demonstrated as being in their own best interests.
In July 1943 he wrote to the head of the B.B.C., "I am very much interested in the question of Basic English. The widespread use of this would be a gain to us far more fruitful than the annexation of great provinces . It would also fit in with my ideas of closer union with the United States by making it even more worthwhile to belong to the English-speaking club . . . I contemplate that the B.B.C. should teach Basic English every day as part of their propaganda and generally make a big push to propagate this method of interchange of thought."
He also set up a Cabinet committee to study it. The committee recommended that Britain’s diplomatic and commercial representatives, the British Council, the ministry of information, the colonial office, and the B.B.C. should all make use of Basic English and assist in its diffusion and that the Orthological Institute should be given substantial financial assistance in its task of translating a wide range of works into Basic.
In March 1944 Churchill formally reported the cabinet committee’s findings and recommendations to Parliament and arranged for the recently proclaimed Atlantic Charter to be printed as a White Paper in its original form and into Basic English for the purpose of comparison. He sent copies of the White Paper to President Roosevelt who replied, tongue-in-cheek, "I wonder what the course of history would have been if in May 1940 you had been able to offer the British people only blood, work, eye water and face water, which I understand is the best that Basic English can do with five famous words. Seriously, however, we are interested and will look into the matter thoroughly."
Others had similar fun with it. Punch translated the Churchillian classic "Never, in the history of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few" into "Never, in the history of men’s disagreement, did such great numbers have so great a debt to such small number."
After Churchill’s coalition government was defeated in July 1945, the new Labour ministry was more concerned with domestic reforms and social welfare than Churchill’s ambitions for Basic. The prevailing attitude at the B.B.C. appears to have been gratitude that Churchill’s departure had relieved its directors of the burden of promoting it. A transmission to offices throughout the world recommended that Basic be placed "on a high shelf in a dark corner."
The new rulers obviously did not agree with Churchill that Basic could be instrumental in winning the peace nor did they see its specific application in assisting in the preservation, in some form, of the scattered remnants of Britain’s empire.
What would have been the fate of Basic English had Churchill not so precipitately fallen from office? It is at least possible that post-imperial Britain might have assumed a very different face and that, as the Commonwealth fed upon the bones of what once had been, the mother country might better have been able to preserve the less tangible but more precious Empire which Churchill had envisioned . In that Harvard speech of September 1943, having outlined in glowing terms the possibilities of Basic English, he exhorted his listeners , "Let us go forward in malice to none and good will to all. Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people’s provinces or land or grinding them down in exploitation . The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."
