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
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."
(14 ans) qui m'a donné l'adresse d'un site formidable, et qui est à l'audio ce que YouTube est à la vidéo.
