BASIC ENGLISH

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 14 (Supplement)

BASIC ENGLISH

“LANGUAGE FOR ALL THE WORLD.” 850-WORD VOCABULARY.* A common language for all the world to speak and understand has long been sought as a potential factor in promoting world peace. There have been several attempts to provide one, but none as yet has come universally into use. There is one, however, which, in the opinion of Mr. Crombie Allen, of Los Angeles, a prominent member of Rotary International, at present touring New Zealand, has special merits. ■ It is called Basic English, and Mr. Allen is doing all in his power to spread the knowledge of it. “In learning a synthetic language,” said Mr. Alien to a reporter, “all nationalities must start from scratch. But this is not a synthetic language. _lt is an auxiliary language by which it is possible to express everything in 850 words.. There are 500,000,000 people in all parts of the world using English now. The rest need to leam only 850 words of Basic English and the whole .world can talk together.” The idea was first developed by Dr. C. K. Ogden, Director of the Orthological Institute at Cambridge, ten years ago. Now he has perfected it, and Mr. Allen believes that its general /adoption will be a great adjunct to the sixth object of Rotary, international peace. Last year the Rotary Convention at Boston passed a resolution formulating plans for the holding of some sort of international gathering to consider. Basic English, though quite without prejudice to the possibility of some other language being selected.

“Advocates of Esperanto have been very active,” Mr. Allen said, “but that is a language with disadvantages not possessed by Basic English. There is very little antagonism to English in other countries, but 1 want it known that Basic English is not intended to supplant any language, but rather to supplement every language.” Mr. Allen illustrated the way any idea can be rendered by some of the 850 words with “disembark,” which in Basic English becomes “get off the ship.” He mentioned the Rotary International motto, “Service Before Self.” “Service” was not in Basic English, but the word “other” was, so the' motto became “Others Before Self.” “It is not meant to be perfect English,” Mr. Allen concluded, “but anyone can add to it by study.”