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jansegersNewspapers: Browse Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld. : 1907 - 1954)
Thursday 26 April 1934
Page 3
VOCABULARY OF 1500 WORDS.
VOCABULARY OF 1500 WORDS.
Simplified English Wanted.
For All Needs.
A vocabulary of from 1300 to 1500
words is enough to express anything
necessary in world trade, diplomatic
exchange, or public addresses, Dr.
Janet Aiken, of the English Depart
ment of Columbia University said re-
cently.
Dr. Aiken will head a committee of
scholars being formed to work out a
system of simplified English, which
can be used as an International langu-
age. She believes it can be done and
without simplified spelling, which she
termed 'anarchy.'
In the opinion of Dr. Aiken, a sys-
tem of English with a vocabulary of
no more than 1500 words would be far
better as an International language
than Esperanto, Ido and other at-
tempts at a universal tongue.
'The trouble with Esperanto and
the others,' she said, 'is that they
start with one people, while English
starts with 240,000,000 people.
'Pidgin English as it is used in
China and in the Pacific Islands is an
adaption of English for International
use, but it is not culturally acceptable
because respectable people won't use
it. A workable aystam must keep to
the language of educated people.
WORLD NEED.
'People all over the world are cry-
ing for an English they can use for
purposes of trade, diplomacy, teach-
ing, and so on, and hundreds of mil-
lions would learn it if they could.'
The trouble with teaching 'literary'
English to foreigners, Dr. Aiken said
lies in its vocabulary of some 280,000
words, the difficulty ot its spelling
and its irrational idioms. At the rate
which people really learn new words,
it would take a foreigner eight years
to learn enough English to read the
'London Times' intelligently, she esti-
mated.
Simplified spelling doesn't help, Dr.
Aiken said, because it doesn't clear up
the difficulties about vocabulary and
idiom. She thinks it much better to
simplify the vocabulary, and she said
that a total of 1500 words is just
enough for the average person to
learn well in a year.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/61793780
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