Basic English Institute
PROJECT CATALOG
100 . Ogden's Basic English -- making his work known and understood
101 . Glossary of Basic English Terms.
Magic is the unstated meanings of words. But, the word-count method is also called "word magic" by Ogden, but he uses
the expression as if previously known to his readers, but even an interested student has
trouble finding his complete definition of word magic and word-count may be only an
example within that definition. We need an Ogden scholar to provide a glossary of his meanings of coined terms.
It can start simply and usefully with things like operators mean verbs and grow in two directions :
in number of words/expressions, and in completeness to describe why certain
concepts are so important to Ogden's procedures as to need special definition.
A glossary of teaching terms will also be useful.; in greater detail that the basic translation dictionary can go : relative pronoun, transitive verb, indirect object, etc.
102 . Basic Texts.
Find any and all Basic English texts that are out of print and put them into electronic form. These can be circulated among our researchers. Summaries will be put on our Ogden
pages. The completeness of the summary will be proportional to the likelihood of copyright challenge. The U.S. has a unreasonable 99 year rule ; we note that generally more liberal Gutenberg Australia ...
has now gone to 70 years from the death of the author which continues to make Ogden's works inaccessible till 2027.
Stop the ProjGuntenberg plans. Go with Project 104, make a "new" Ogden's Basic English.
Conversion from HTML to PDF format and editing for pagination, etc.
Presentation of much of the original works are dated in
examples and graphics. Rewrites for the 21st Century must be considered.
See "Research Orthological Institute" project.
103 . Research Orthological Institute.
The Institute activities of research, education, publishing and lobbying died with Ogden and
with Churchill's departure from office in the mid-40's. Parts were rolled into the Basic English Foundation which disbanded in the 60's. Who owns the copyrights to
Ogden's work? (This question is frequently asked of the BEI.) The originals were intended to expire/ become public property in the 80's.
Lawerys was the last director and his archives are stored in London as Lawerys Collection and much of Ogden's work in Canada and may be available to researchers.
104 . New Book -- "Ogden's Basic English".
Write a new book taken from the pages of www.basic-english.org .
See self publish books : Lulu - basic, paperback ~$8.50. or XLibris - $500 or IUniverse - $600 ; or Blurb - (fancy, hardcover, ~$48.). New - Create Space (Amazon, e-book ~$10 and paperback ~$13).
105 . The First Supplement . We have not found Ogden's original list.
The first supplement consists, therefore of the 150 names of animals, plants, and foods, which have no international distribution." -- "Basic English," Part I, Chapter 4.
The current thought is to identify all the words for animals, plants and foods from the Basic Dictionary, then cross reference with the most frequent words and with recommended word lists by other authorities, including Richards' in "English Through Pictures, Book 3." Then select 25 words in each category for use within Basic and list others for consideration by teachers.
106. The Basic Words. This book is out of print and it needs to be improved while making the ideas available.
110 . Transcription of Existing Basic Works.
Books with "(more)". Find and make available existing works in Basic.
Ogden's goal was 1000 classics -- many are out there.
200 . 21st Century -- vocabulary, publicity, lobbying
201 . Words for the 21st Century.
Analyse Ogden's words for suitability in the 21st Century.
Example - The "radio committee" for international news included the word "bolshevik" meaning radical, extreme. A later generation replaced that word with "communist" - a socialist policy and expansive form of government. [Note : Bolshevik, Communist, Labor, and Democrat political groups are proper names and naturally usable in Basic.] Today's news might find
"terrorism" a necessary word. Less obvious, but I suspect that the word "apparatus" was
commonly used in Ogden's world whereas today that word has an archaic ring about it,
and that "device" might be more pleasing to our ear today (and shorter and easier to spell.)
202 . Common English Words
Side by side comparison of the most common 1000 words with the
Basic English 1000 words. Where the Basic Word is missing, include the Basic translation
in a different font/color. Where there is no English word for the Basic word,
this becomes an example of why the common word approach to language is
flawed. Prepare a report. I suspect it will confirm Ogden's theory of selected
words is more useful than are the most used words. But the "word count' school
might have something going for it and we might learn something to help make
Basic better. The word count statistics will be helpful to
the 21st Century Words project and information to support that project should
accumulated for reference. See 315 and 452.
Reference: BNC Word Frequency -- the most frequent 50 words are 43.4% of total word usage ; 48 are Basic, 43% of all usage.
Do it again with the most common 2,000 words vs. the Basic 2,000.
Where there are gaps in common words for concepts that Ogden shows are
necessary for living expression, make up some examples for use in "selling"
Basic English.
210 . WORD LISTS. Discuss Word Changes.
211 . Computer and Internet Words.
220 . MEDIA
221 . Cyber Radio / Podcasts.
300 . E-Office -- spell checking, translation, software.
301 . Install the spell checking lists for existing software and word processing suites.
Open Office.org is done !
302 . Adapt the spelling lists as required by different software.
304 . Spell Checking for expanded vocabulary at various levels of usage -- pure, media, intermediate, advanced? Extend to : SIMPLE, WIKI, EVERYMANS
and various forms for software packages.
310 . Translation from English to Basic.
The translation dictionary is necessary for the electronic translation of existing and
new writing into Basic so as to make Basic easily available to those who need to
write in Basic and for those who know Basic and need key writings in Basic -- documents, news, et al.
* Transliteration of Ogden's The Basic Dictionary is virtually complete and has been usable for some time. This project has been enhanced with the most frequent words in English usage.
Over 44,000 words, spelling, and senses. This is more than adequate to proceed with advanced uses of an online dictionary.
312 . Advanced Translation
Create translation lists from "The General Basic English Dictionary" (the larger dictionary -- a responsible activity to provide a greater translation vocabulary by expanding beyond "The Basic Dictionary."
313 . Check the translation dictionary for completeness of derivatives.
314 . Provide Basic translations of newer concepts : computer, internet, etc. (Much of this has been rolled into 310)
315 . Basic translations for expanded vocabulary at various levels of usage -- pure, media, intermediate, advanced?
and various forms for software packages.
316 . Provide Basic translations of English variants -- Amer, Brit, Can, etc.
(some variants are included in 310, this project is to affirm that it is accomplished.)
317 . Provide translation of technical words -- legal, medical, etc. (The existing Basic
categories of Science, Business, Verse were included in 310.) See project 200 for creating additional general and detailed word lists.
318 . Get Basic English recognized as a language, region, or variant in I18N standards.
318 . Create a VOA special English option package add-on for each alternative. -- version 1 and 2 are done.
320 . Software.
320 . Install the Basic English translation word lists into existing word processing software for inline translation / thesaurus uses. OpenOffice Thesaurus
321 . Adapt the Basic English translation table as required by more word processing software suites.
322. Vocabulary Profiler Spell Checking.
Make a simple, long text file for use with Lextutor Web VP (Vocabulary Profiler).
323 . Simplify/Rewrite IDP Companion for Basic usages.
Ref : Online-Utility
400 . Education -- for aid to instructors
401 . Lesson Plans. One of the top requests of the Institute is for lesson plans.
410 . Primary School (and ESL)
411 . Creation of text and study materials.
415 . Panopticon
420 . Native Speakers of English.
421 . Writers Workshop -- background, tools, ...
422 . Basic as an International Auxiliary Language in Business.
423 . Basic as an International Auxiliary Language in Science and Technology
424 . Basic as an International Auxiliary Language in Literature.
425 . Basic as an International Auxiliary Language in [everything else]
430 . Non-Native Speakers of English.
431 . Creation of texts, workbooks, CDs, online resources for teaching.
432 . Creation of texts, workbooks, CDs, online sequence for self-instruction.
Plans needed to go with "By Pictures" which is an effective technique.
440 . Write Books in Basic along the lines of : Natural Grammar , . . .
450 . Next Steps.
The path to full English, or at least to Ogden's idea that the 2,000 word
level become self sustaining for additional learning. There is more to it than the
Next Step words. Additional affixes (Essential English offers good suggestions,
Longman is too extensive); converting Basic nouns into Verbs; more complicated sentence structure; compound words from the additional vocabulary; come immediately to mind.
451 Verbs . Compare the most common 100 verbs with
those the learner commands after completing the Next Steps program.
452. Simple English. Defined as Basic plus 1,000 most frequently used English words -- 320 of top thousand words are not Basic. Determine which words are not included in Basic. can, know, . . . that go into the second thousand list 1000 list. Do not include ahh, ya'no. This project has most initial work done with word lists defined and is ready for compilation. Create a VOA option package. (#318)
460 . After Basic English -- on going resources.
500. LEARNING -- Aid to students.
Visual.
501. Picturable Words. Ogden's 200 picturable words need to have their pictures
put on the web. A sample is here.
502. More Picturable Words. There is room for several variations and combinations
of words that can be expressed with pictures. A sample is here.
503. Photo rather than line drawings -- for those with high speed internet.
504. Powerpoint, OOo Presentation
505. Animated Basic English. Basic concepts that are made clear with animation :
still - walk - run ; tall - taller - tallest ;
506. Motion pictures -- for those with high speed internet.
510. Audio.
511. Audio Basic English. Pronunciation of the Basic words.
Starting as an independent project, it will be good if the pronunciations are usable (clickable) in other web pages and applications.
512. Word Definitions.
512. PodCast Lessons.
520 Audio-Visual. -- See 221- PodCasing technology
521. PodCast Words.
522. PodCast Lessons -- is this available in 512 ?
550. Forum Advisor to aid learners with Basic English.
600. Language -- Basic in Languages other than English.
601 . German -- Translation of Ogden work.
602 . French -- Translation of Ogden work.
610 . The Basic Concept applied to other languages. This is another common
request intended for teaching other languages and for use of simple vocabulary
in other languages. Of course, Basic is the only language recommended for an international second language.
612 . E-Prime -- suppression of
617 . Portuguese Dictionary.
800. Other Projects
801. Rhyme
???. Basic Bot -- artificial intelligence.
Basic is the natural language of AI.
810. Phonetics . Real phonetics is too complex for normal use. See suggestion.
820. Spelling Reform. This is not an Institute project but provides ideas for interested people. See suggestion.
830. English Reform. This is not an Institute project, but acknowledges some useful things to improve English.
900. Projects Administration
901 . Internet -- webmaster, servers, style
902 . Ogden - search and transcription
903 . Institute - public relations, teaching, educator, e-mail, publications,
904 . Forum
910 . Back office work
911 . Recruiting and Grants
920 . Project Management
921 . Revision Control
922 . Quality Control
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.Last updated March 14, , 2006.
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