Basic English: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:58, 2 April 2010

Revision as of 03:59, 2 April 2010

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== Literary references ==

In the [[future history]] booknovel ''[[The Shape of Things to Come]]'', published in 1933, [[H.G. Wells]] depicted Basic English as the [[lingua franca]] of a new elite which after a prolonged struggle succeeds in uniting the world and establishing a [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]] [[world government]]. In the future world of Wells' vision, virtually all members of humanity know this language.

From 1942 until 1944 [[George Orwell]] was a proponent of Basic English, but in 1945 he became critical of [[universal language]]. The language later inspired his use of [[Newspeak]] in ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Illich |first=Ivan |authorlink=Ivan Illich |coauthors=Barry Sanders |title=ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind |year=1988 |publisher=[[North Point Press]] |___location=[[San Francisco]] |language=[[English language]] |isbn=0-86547-291-2 |pages=109 |quote=The satirical force with which Orwell used Newspeak to serve as his portrait of one of those totalitarian ideas that he saw taking root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere can be understood only if we remember that he speaks with shame about a belief that he formerly held... From 1942 to 1944, working as a colleague of William Empson's, he produced a series of broadcasts to India written in Basic English, trying to use its programmed simplicity, as a ''Tribune'' article put it, "as a sort of corrective to the oratory of statesmen and publicists." Only during the last year of the war did he write "Politics and the English Language," insisting that the defense of English language has nothing to do with the setting up of a Standard English."}}</ref>