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58-405: A descendant of Interglossa is Glosa (1970s–), which expanded and made changes to the words of the language. In 1943 Hogben published Interglossa: A draft of an auxiliary for a democratic world order . As a professor, Hogben had seen how hard it was for the students to memorize the terms of biology, as they were poorly acquainted with etymology and the classical languages. So he began to show them

116-564: A constructed language called Speedtalk , in which every Basic English word is replaced with a single phoneme , as an appropriate means of communication for a race of genius supermen. The Lord's Prayer has been often used for an impressionistic language comparison: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your kingdom come. Let your pleasure be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day bread for our needs. And make us free of our debts, as we have made free those who are in debt to us. And let us not be put to

174-521: A 50-word list from a more specialised subset of that general field, to make a basic 1000-word vocabulary for everyday work and life. Moreover, Ogden assumed that any student should already be familiar with (and thus may only review) a core subset of around 200 "international" words. Therefore, a first-level student should graduate with a core vocabulary of around 1200 words. A realistic general core vocabulary could contain around 2000 words (the core 850 words, plus 200 international words, and 1000 words for

232-787: A Na; plus Tu acte pardo plu malo Acte de Na; metro Na acte pardo Mu; Su acte malo de Na. Peti Tu non acte dirigo Na a plu malo Offero; Hetero, Tu date libero Na apo Malo. Causo Tu tene u Crati plus u Dyno plus un eu Famo pan Tem. Amen. Πάτερ ημών ο εν τοις ουρανοίς, αγιασθήτω το όνομά Σου, ελθέτω η Βασιλεία σου, γενηθήτω το θέλημά σου ως εν ουρανώ και επί της γης. Τον άρτον ημών τον επιούσιον δος ημίν σήμερον, και άφες ημίν τα οφειλήματα ημών, ως και ημείς αφίεμεν τοις οφειλέταις ημών. Και μη εισενέγκης ημάς εις πειρασμόν, αλλά ρύσαι ημάς από του πονηρού. Ότι σου εστί η βασιλεία και η δύναμις και η δόξα εις τους αιώνας. Αμήν. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it

290-411: A completely analytic language: there are no inflections for noun plurals, verb tenses, genders, and so on – the words never change. Grammatical functions are taken over by a limited number of operator words and by the word order (syntax). Subject–verb–object order is the standard word order, and "adjectives" usually precede "nouns", and the "verbs" follow the tense particles and the "adverbs". Glosa

348-450: A composite word in Glosa, one just combines existing words. For example: Therefore, a student is stude-pe (one who studies), a male student is stude-an , a female student is stude-fe and a building where students study (school, college, etc.) is a stude-do . Likewise a hospital is pato-do (from the word pathology but meaning sickness ), literally meaning a house/building for

406-409: A few further and trivial changes were introduced” . But there is no precise information about them, so it's not clear exactly which changes were made by Hogben and Clark, and which were made by Clark and Ashby. In Glosa, words always retain their original form, regardless of their function in a sentence. Thus, the same word can function as a verb , noun , adjective or preposition . Glosa is thereby

464-651: A great part of the lexicon is of Latin origin. The term Inter-glossa itself is composed of the Latin inter and the Greek glossa . At times Hogben wavers between Greek and Latin, and suggests pairs of equivalent synonyms (e.g. hypo and infra , soma and corpora ), for an eventual international committee to decide between them. Mass observation on the basis of questionnaires sent out to different groups of people of different nationalities would settle which words in each pigeon-hole are entitled to first-rank . In 1943 Hogben announced

522-440: A kind which anyone can usefully undertake. In fact, the grammar of Interglossa , as is largely true of Basic English , is semantics. Unlike other auxiliary languages, Hogben's Interglossa tends to adopt the international words from Greek, on account of the intense infiltration of Greek roots into everyday life , which come from modern science and technology. For instance: microbe, microphone, telephone, etc. (p. 30). Even so,

580-423: A lexicon of 954. Hogben finally provides an alphabetical list (pp. 249–56), which unfortunately has frequent mistakes in the item numbers (here corrected). Syllables in bold type are "generic substantives" used in compound words. Glosa Glosa is a constructed international auxiliary language based on Interglossa (a previous draft of an auxiliary published in 1943). The first Glosa dictionary

638-671: A means for world peace. He was convinced that the world needed to gradually eradicate minority languages and use as much as possible only one: English, in either a simple or complete form. Although Basic English was not built into a program, similar simplifications have been devised for various international uses. Richards promoted its use in schools in China. It has influenced the creation of Voice of America 's Learning English for news broadcasting, and Simplified Technical English , another English-based controlled language designed to write technical manuals. What survives of Ogden's Basic English

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696-528: A minimal grammar with a series of syntactic rules, yet differing from the usual grammar of inflexional-agglutinative languages like the Indo-European ones: Inevitably, we find our-selves gravitating away from the grammatical pattern of the Aryan [Indo-European] family to a more universal idiom with features common to Chinese. The result is that learning a language so designed is a lively training in clear thinking of

754-433: A new auxiliary language. Until about 1979, Ashby and Clark tested the use of Glosa using local volunteers in the town in which they were living. During this period, the vocabulary and some details of sentence formation were developed and revised. They had moved to another town by the time they had published the first Glosa dictionary. From 1987, the charity-status organisation GEO (Glosa Education Organisation) has promoted

812-448: A primer for the beginner. Interglossa might be seen as the draft of its descendant auxiliary language Glosa , which has partly changed and expanded the lexicon. Interglossa has a Latin alphabet using the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet without any diacritics. Most letters of the alphabet are pronounced in accordance with the symbols of the international phonetic alphabet , with

870-450: A sentence (verb, adjective, etc.), exempli gratia: " oku " can mean " eye ", " optical ", " to notice with the eyes ", " see (look) ", " perceive (with the eyes) ", or " to peep ". Phrases, the basic unit of recognizable meaning in Glosa, follow a Subject–Verb–(Object) order and noun phrases are "substantive final", which means that they start with the least important word, and are followed by additional words combining progressively to extend

928-426: A simple grammar for modifying or combining its 850 words to talk about additional meanings ( morphological derivation or inflection ). The grammar is based on English, but simplified. Like all international auxiliary languages (or IALs), Basic English may be criticised as inevitably based on personal preferences, and is thus, paradoxically, inherently divisive. Moreover, like all natural-language-based IALs, Basic

986-426: A small number of essential light verbs (up to 20), which Hogben calls “verboids” or “verbal operators”, like the 18 verb operators of Basic English . In Glosa words from this special class can be elided if the context is clear. Glosa spelling is completely regular and phonetic: one spelling always represents one sound, and one sound is always represented by one spelling. With the sole exception of SC which represents

1044-433: A statement into an interrogative, qe is placed at the beginning of the sentence. The prepositions of Glosa are here presented with their English translations, and with English example words containing cognates or the same roots in parentheses, with the corresponding part italicized. The numbers from 0–10 are: ze, mo, bi, tri, tet, pen, six, seti, ok, nona, deka . For 0, 4, 5, 7 and 8 (ze, tet, pen, seti, ok), there's also

1102-481: A work noted for a wide vocabulary. Shannon notes that the lack of vocabulary in Basic English leads to a very high level of redundancy , whereas Joyce's large vocabulary "is alleged to achieve a compression of semantic content". In the novel The Shape of Things to Come , published in 1933, H. G. Wells depicted Basic English as the lingua franca of a new elite that after a prolonged struggle succeeds in uniting

1160-466: Is a controlled language based on standard English , but with a greatly simplified vocabulary and grammar . It was created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language , and as an aid for teaching English as a second language . It was presented in Ogden's 1930 book Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar . The first work on Basic English

1218-568: Is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Hogben provides a numbered list of 880 words with etymologic clues.(pp. 256–82) Some of the items (about 100) are pairs of synonyms, for example: dirigo / controlo (item no. 185). Hogben also provides an additional list of 74 international words, so actually there would be

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1276-506: Is subject to criticism as unfairly biased towards the native speaker community. As a teaching aid for English as a second language , Basic English has been criticised for the choice of the core vocabulary and for its grammatical constraints. In 1944, readability expert Rudolf Flesch published an article in Harper's Magazine , "How Basic is Basic English?" in which he said, "It's not basic, and it's not English." The essence of his complaint

1334-402: Is that the post-war world may be ripe, as never before, for recognition of need for a remedy which so many others have sought. When need becomes articulate, it will be relatively simple for an international committee (...). (...) the author modestly consigns this first draft in the hope that readers will make suggestions and offer constructive criticisms as a basis for something better. It is not

1392-518: Is that the vocabulary is too restricted, and, as a result, the text ends up being awkward and more difficult than necessary. He also argues that the words in the Basic vocabulary were arbitrarily selected, and notes that there had been no empirical studies showing that it made language simpler. In his 1948 paper " A Mathematical Theory of Communication ", Claude Shannon contrasted the limited vocabulary of Basic English with James Joyce 's Finnegans Wake ,

1450-570: Is the basic 850-word list used as the beginner's vocabulary of the English language taught worldwide, especially in Asia. Ogden tried to simplify English while keeping it normal for native speakers, by specifying grammar restrictions and a controlled small vocabulary which makes an extensive use of paraphrasing . Most notably, Ogden allowed only 18 verbs, which he called "operators". His "General Introduction" says, "There are no 'verbs' in Basic English", with

1508-427: Is used commonly in order to simplify pronunciation. X may be pronounced z at the start of a word but this is non-preferred. Some foreign names may include non-Glosa letters in order to retain original spelling. The first pronunciation is the preferred one: There are no diphthongs in Glosa. Where two or more vowels occur together, they are pronounced separately. The stress or accent should be placed gently on

1566-520: Is usually compared to two natural languages which are analytical in different degrees, Chinese and English. It is also similar to the auxiliary Lingua sistemfrater , also known as Frater, published in 1957 by the Vietnamese Phạm Xuân Thái. Frater is also isolating, has a similar vocabulary base, but a slightly different syntactical structure, and has no articles – where Glosa uses u/un for both “the” and “a”/“an”, or gendered pronouns. Glosa

1624-469: Is written with the Latin alphabet without special characters. There are no double vowels or consonants and pronunciation rules are simple and regular. Most words in Glosa are taken from Latin and Greek roots. Glosa is thus an a posteriori language . While aspects of Hogben's Interglossa were explicitly inspired by the auxiliary Basic English , Glosa tends to work like normal English. Interglossa works with

1682-407: The penultimate syllable, e.g. bill e ta (ticket), n e sia (island). If the word ends with two vowels ( -io, -ia, etc.), these might sound as a diphthong. But Hogben rather keeps a hiatus , stating that the stress in n e sia is on the antepenultimate syllable (thus analysed as nE-si-a , not * nE-sia ). A classification of parts of speech relevant to an isolating language would not follow

1740-541: The above. Qo horo? can also be used for “What time?” or “What is the time?”. The basic demonstratives used for indication (this, that, etc.) are: The demonstratives can also be used in the same way as the words in the table above: u-ci mode, u-la mode (thus; in this way, in that way), u-ci ka, u-la ka (for this cause, for that cause), u-ci te (with this intention), etc. For “this time”, there's also nu (now), and for “that much/that many”, you can say tanto ; for “that kind” talo . To change

1798-432: The babel of tongues is a social problem of the first magnitude. Men of science, more than others, have at their finger-tips an international vocabulary which is already in existence (...) Eventually, Hogben became convinced that such an auxiliary language appeared to be more necessary than ever before, so he decided to publish his proposal, insisting that it was simply a draft: A good enough reason for publishing this draft

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1856-533: The categories appropriate to the flexional system of the Indo-European group. The vocables of Interglossa can be classified following the function of individual vocables in the “ sentence-landscape” (p. 32-3): For ready recognition, a language free of flexions can benefit from two types of signposts of “ sentence-landscape”: articles (see “Parts of Speech”), and terminals (that is, final vowels): Hogben prefers to have this number of exceptions instead of

1914-523: The context, are taken over by a small number of operator words and by the use of word order ( syntax ). Being an a posteriori language , Glosa takes most of its vocabulary from Greek and Latin roots , seen by the authors as international in a sense by their usage in science. Glosa is based on the draft auxiliary language Interglossa devised by the scientist Lancelot Hogben in the empty hours of fire-watching in Aberdeen during World War II . Interglossa

1972-604: The disadvantage of mutilating a familiar international stem or of unduly lengthening the word . (p. 37) Interglossa is a purely isolating language like Chinese , not depending on suffixes, neither flexional nor derivational, yet it uses a kind of composites whose second component is a monosyllabic noun. Like in Chinese (and English), composite nouns are essential, and so is the context. According to Hogben, such composite nouns may be self-explicit while we take into account its common context of use (p. 21). Interglossa provides

2030-444: The emphatic auto is used for “self, own“. Most words can act as verbs, depending on their places in the sentence (usually in the medial position). "Prior word" here means a word used immediately prior to the verb of the sentence or clause in order to demonstrate or affect its tense. For example: Adjectives, like the rest of the language, are not inflected. They do not change to fit the tense, number, gender, formality, or etc. of

2088-403: The following exceptions: In the following initial consonant combinations, the first element is silent: c t- , g n- , m n- , p n- , p s- , p t- . These rules admit of no inconsistencies. The inconvenience of having a few anomalies which go into a dozen lines of print is far less than the disadvantage which would result from mutilating roots beyond visual recognition. The stress is generally on

2146-472: The general fields of trade, economics, and science). It is enough for a "standard" English level. This 2000 word vocabulary represents "what any learner should know". At this level students could start to move on their own. Ogden's Basic English 2000 word list and Voice of America's Special English 1500 word list serve as dictionaries for the Simple English Misplaced Pages . Basic English includes

2204-467: The group of words that represents the more complex things, actions and descriptions (sometimes usable for all three) present in a language, such as: via [road], kurso [run], hedo [happy], vide [see], celera [swift], tako [fast; quick; swift; brisk; hasty; prompt; hurry; nimble; rapid; rapidity; rate; speed; haste; sprint; quick; speedy; velocity]; oku [eye]. Please note that many of these words have multiple meanings, based on how they are used in

2262-521: The international Greek and Latin roots of these terms to aid their memory. He started to compile a vocabulary, and later, during World War II at Birmingham, he devised some guidelines of syntax, thus completing the draft of a new auxiliary language especially based on the lexicon of modern science: Because natural science is the only existing form of human co-operation on a planetary scale, men of science, who have to turn to journals published in many languages for necessary information, are acutely aware that

2320-463: The language should have a phonetic spelling (that is: each letter representing a single sound). This principle implied that the Greek CH, TH and PH now should be spelt K, T and F. Finally a few further changes were introduced by Ron Clark and Wendy Ashby, who then gave the language the new name Glosa (from the Greek word for tongue, language – “glossa” being the English transliteration), and thus founded

2378-410: The letter combination SC – the only digraph. As in many languages, J makes the “y”-sound found in y ell or y ak . G and S are always "hard" ( g oat and, respectively, hi ss / s nake ). R should be trilled or "tapped" (the tongue lightly taps the palate of one's mouth), never uvularized. The practice of pronouncing N before a velar sound (g or k) as ŋ is generally non-preferred but

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2436-464: The limited set of verbs). The 850 core words of Basic English are found in Wiktionary's Basic English word list . This core is theoretically enough for everyday life. However, Ogden prescribed that any student should learn an additional 150-word list for everyday work in some particular field, by adding a list of 100 words particularly useful in a general field (e.g., science, verse, business), along with

2494-543: The longer forms zero, tetra, penta, septi and okto . Higher numbers are formed by combining the numerals in the number, and in some cases by proper names: Note that some use centi , the older form of hekto , for “hundred”. Centi is now used as “hundredth” in accordance with the ISO standard usage. Numbers placed after a noun will function as ordinal numbers: u bibli tri , “the third book”. Mo , bi and tri also means single, double and triple, respectively. In order to form

2552-445: The meaning of the substantive, which comes last. Glosa words can often serve as more than one part of speech. Thus part of speech is a role that the word plays in a sentence, not a tightly-bound property of a word. Glosa, unlike English, distinguishes between "you" about one person, which is tu , and about several people, which is vi . The reflexive pronoun ”oneself” is se , the reciprocal pronoun alelo means ”each other”, and

2610-461: The nouns that they modify. They generally precede the word that they modify. Sometimes an adjective's place determines its meaning: To create "opposites", one just places " no- " as a prefix to the adjective. This usage is similar to that of the prefix " mal- " in Esperanto which gives the word the exact opposite meaning. So the Glosa usage below means "not beautiful". It is the equivalent of some of

2668-453: The preface of the 1959 reprint: "It [World War II] was a bleak period of present privation and threatening disaster—the period of soya beans and Basic English—and in consequence the book is infused with a kind of gluttony, for food and wine, for the splendours of the recent past, and for rhetorical and ornamental language that now, with a full stomach, I find distasteful." In his story " Gulf ", science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein used

2726-781: The preparation of an additional volume, A short English-Interglossa Dictionary . It seems that this volume was not in fact published. Its manuscript is kept among Hogben's papers at the University of Birmingham , and was put online in 2014. The following is the Lord's Prayer , in Interglossa “U Petitio de Christi” (p. 242): Na Parenta in Urani: Na dicte volo; tu Nomino gene revero; plus tu Crati habe accido; plus u Demo acte harmono tu Tendo epi Geo homo in Urani; Na dicte petitio: Tu date plu di Pani

2784-451: The sick . Meals can also be formed by noun-compounding: Generally, the following derivation rules apply when creating new words for Glosa. Some basic words (often that act as specificational prefixes) are shortened (such as " an ", " fe ", or " pe "). Indefinite words remain as they are ( ad , de , si , kata ). Basic English Basic English (a backronym for British American Scientific International and Commercial English )

2842-401: The sound ʃ (as “sh” in short ), every letter just represents one sound, and vice versa. Glosa is written with the Latin letters. The alphabet consists of the following letters (and digraph ), and their upper case equivalents: Unlike several other auxiliary languages, Glosa uses the letters Q and X . C makes the “ch” sound in ch ur ch . The “sh” sound in sh ort is represented by

2900-482: The teaching of Glosa as a second language in schools worldwide. GEO's official website was set up by Paul O. Bartlett in 1996, and it is managed at present by Marcel Springer. It provides the Glosa Internet Dictionary ( Glosa Inter-reti Diktionaria ), as well as an introductory course, and other resources. A Wiki in Glosa was created in 2021. According to History behind Glosa , after Hogben's death “

2958-489: The underlying assumption that, as noun use in English is very straightforward but verb use/conjugation is not, the elimination of verbs would be a welcome simplification. What the World needs most is about 1,000 more dead languages—and one more alive. Ogden's word lists include only word roots , which in practice are extended with the defined set of affixes and the full set of forms allowed for any available word (noun, pronoun, or

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3016-401: The uses on in- or un- in English. Words used to ask or answer a question of who, where, what, when, why, how or how much. These words form a set in a semi-systematic manner with a particle of the compound indicating abstract quantity (what person or thing, what place, what time, for what reason, in what manner, what is the amount) and the prefix/other particle indicating the specific function of

3074-444: The vowel before the last consonant. Glosa contains two major groups of words: Primitives are the small number of basic function words present in most languages—these allow us to describe the relationships between the major concepts we convey. These are basically prepositions and conjunctions, such as: de [of], e [and], pre [before], supra [above], sub [under; below; lower; beneath; lesser; somewhat]. Substantives here are

3132-406: The word (exactly which, all, some, negating, etc.). Here are some examples. There are other ways to say the following correlatives, the table just shows the most basic and systematic of these: In addition to the above, there is the prefix/beginning singu- (each), and the suffixes/endings -numera (amount/number), -speci (quality/kind of) and -kron (time), which can be used in the same way as

3190-548: The world and establishing a totalitarian world government . In the future world of Wells' vision, virtually all members of humanity know this language. From 1942 to 1944 George Orwell was a proponent of Basic English, but in 1945 he became critical of universal languages . Basic English later inspired his use of Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four . Evelyn Waugh criticized his own 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited , which he had previously called his magnum opus, in

3248-461: Was published 1978. The name of the language comes from the Greek root glossa meaning tongue or language. Glosa is an isolating language , which means that words never change form, and Glosa spelling is also completely regular and phonetic. As an isolating language, there are no inflections , so that words always remain in their dictionary form, no matter what function they have in the sentence. Consequently, grammatical functions, when not clear from

3306-457: Was published in 1943 as a draft of an auxiliary . Ron Clark came across the handbook of Interglossa: a draft of an auxiliary about 1960. Then he met Professor Hogben with the aim of developing the language. They worked to refine it, in order to make it more easily usable in all possible forms of communication. Wendy Ashby joined the project in 1972. When Hogben died in 1975, most changes had already been discussed. Hogben and Clark had agreed that

3364-626: Was written by two Englishmen, Ivor Richards of Harvard University and Charles Kay Ogden of the University of Cambridge in England. The design of Basic English drew heavily on the semiotic theory put forward by Ogden and Richards in their 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning . Ogden's Basic, and the concept of a simplified English, gained its greatest publicity just after the Allied victory in World War II as

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