Throughout Great Decisions -- we have said over and over that we need nations and cultures to get to know each other. to reduce fears and US vs.Them-ism. We discussed the eaning of "right behavior" -- this is from the point of view of the speaker. It would be best if you would adopt our concept of morality, freedom, democracy, free enterprise, goals and purposes of personal life, values, goals, asperations, and norms. NEEDS: A language whose benefits are immediate : Latin and esperanto are for small audiences of priests and hobbists. A language whose structure is simple. A language whose pronounciation, spelling and regularity are easy to learn. Are we getting into computer langauges of mathamatics? = No natural language meets the last two points. But some can be made simple by restricting artisitic features . In fact, the structure of English can be quite simiple. Can vocabulary be made simple? We have great redundancy from Latin, Greek, Germnic and immigrant roots. What about spelling. Uses 26 letters with no accept marks like in French, Spanish, German. For most irregular verbs, there is a synanym that is regular. What about verbs? A book was written recently that had no verbs. Critics said it lacked action. Is literary merit of goal, or conversation to live, work, trade, and communicate. How many words are really required to communicate. It has been joked that a Yorkshire farmer or Appallatchin hillbilly has a working vocabulary of 400 words. "a-Yep" "If we were to take the 25,000 word Oxford pocket English Dictionary. [more, much] NON OBVIOUS POINTS, QUESTIONS. While visiting Holland a couple of years ago, I was impressed while watching TV with Dutch subtitles. Over and over I was impressed with the variations in English speech that were reduced to a lesser number of words at the bottom of the screen. "Of course", "Sure", "Clearly", "Obviously", "No surprise there." ... all were reduced to "Naturally". This reemphasized that there is no need in learn the full richness of English to adequately express oneself. Verbs are among the most difficult sticking points in English. The number of actions is actually quite limited. And quite complicated -- in the part of the store I frequent, there are books titled Learning 400 English verbs. Ogden tried first with only 8 verbs and later had to double them to 16 by adding see, say, seem and a few more. He may have added too many : "keep", to me, is just a variation of "have". More importantly,they are emotionally charged words. By the selection of words, we slant and spin the meanings to something that expresses the speakers view of an event. He confessed, he demanded, he belittled. All this goes away with " he said." Ogden was an editor of international translations by trade and lived during the Great War. Among his publications was a weekly summary of world headlines. He saw a partial solution to world peace in his developement of an international langauge based o nouns, concrete, mostly visable things. There are 60 verbs buried in Basic nouns. Cook is a chief. To cook is a verb. Why not include all these verbs? We do, in phase two, for those who want to move into full english. But for the simpliest international auxliary language, to keep it simple we limit the range of verbage. This lowest level of decent English communication is what forms the core of understandable words used around the world. We experience this with computer software. Their is a simple language developed: ForTran, COBOL or any other. Each vendor adds special features. None of the various dialects can completely understand the other. You are locked into one vendor only if you want your software to work together. Doesn't this sound like various countries having their own langauges? Many words are used with multiple meanings. Wouldn't it be as easy to have a new word for each separate meaning? An interesting idea, but rejected for three big reasons -- in addition to the fact that it is not English to not have multiple meanings for words. "general" means all common things, but an army "General" is certainly not common. If the student thinks he knows a word and finds in real life it means something else, it will blow his mind. More specificially, adding additional words (a) brings in more opportunity for multiple meanings of these additional words, which does not contriubute to solving the problem as suggested, rather it makes it worse. (b) it introduces totaly additional load of learning a new word to recognise, to learn usage of, to spell, and to pronounce. Sure it adds richness to the vocabulary, but it becomes an abbreviated English, neither full English nor with the minimal learning level of Basic. Compound words are made from know usages of Basic words. "Blueberry" is a perfectly understandable compound of the root meanings of blue and berry. However, "butterfly" is not an understandable joining of a kitchen spread and an insect. Some are judgment calls. Is a fireman an arsonist or a brave public employee? / Not taught as Basic, but one I was tempted to use in the dictionary, is the use of "-able" as a suffix. "able" is a Basic word, so it can be safely used in a compound word. "work-able" meaning "able to work". I say Yes. What about alternate spelling of the suffix, as -ible, there is no word "ible", so I say No. So, in the dictionary, I carefully include "able" words, not as a suffix, but as a compound. / International words inclueds things like menu, chauffer, vodka. Not necessary, but why freely usable. How does on say "Great Tetons National Park in Basic? Proper nouns, anything with a capitalized name, exists as itself. It is not of any language, yet of all language: Wahington is a state, city, street and president -- it is not taught as German, or Basic, but as Washington. Creative Retirement had the City/County Clerk speak one day. A major problem and expense is the unfunded mandate to provide for translation. Of documents, forms, testimony, even at voting places, whereever asked for. the potental expense to local governements, tax payers, ie, U&me, is tremendous. If the IRS regularions, for example, were written in Basic it would elinate need for dozen of versions. The text would be understandable by all, even those who are under achievers, and perhaps made more understandable to even the more educated and frustrated of us. Spelling Reform. Most people who are interested in an auxililary world langauge also are interested in Spelling reform. However, Basic is to be transparent with standard English. As spelling evolves, so does Basic : the opera programme and gift shoppe is now spelled without the two, trailing silent letters. Silent e's have been dropped from axe and oxe. Basic will not lead spelling reform because its users would appear illiterate to those who are not trend setting elite. PROS: Defacto world language today -- an offical language of 58 nations. Immediately useful among the previously under-educated opening doors to business, education, entertainment. Understandable by all -- native english speakers and new learners -- without being obvious or intrusive. For example: the TR had a Spanish page for a very short while. However, an article of interest to the latino community could be written in Basic so that the most interested can understand it, yet be totally transparent to the general public as perfectly good English. Note: nothing intrusive or devisive such as "hable espanole." signs in store fronts.. The fundimental structures are easy to understand and learn. subject-verb-object. Carefully selected list of modifors --adjectives. Regular use of suffixes: Ogden selected -ed, -er, -ing, -ly. and prefix un- as an alternate, addition to "not". What about -able. well "able" is a Basic word, so it can be used as a compound word. "work-able" meaning "able to work". Kin ship is not, unless you mean to ship your kin. "butterfly" is not a basic compound of kitchen spread and insect, but blueberry is. Although the Latin-Germanic allows multiple wording, it also allows a greater "in" to understandings. Within the Hispanic community, for instance, there are hundreds of common words with English that add richness without cost, or than to practice an English accent to many of their existing words. CONS: American media is becoming embarasing even to many of us. Trying to force America on the world. Such a view is to cut off ones nose to spite the face. English is the language of business, commerce, trade, science, education, entertainment, sports, travel, When educated Koreans speak to Chinese, they converse in English, the common language between nations. Increased understanding and identy with the U.S. will increase immigration. England has experience that with their Commonwealth inportion of peoples and problems. If we encourage English in Latin American to raise thier standard of living, there will also be created an element that will short-cut the process and seek individual self interest. MORE INFORMATION. A Basic English website has existed since 1996. It is over 300 pages of Ogden's original work. In 1996, a web search found nothng about Basic English.. So a web page was put there. That has now grown to over 300 web pages including several books, so that one web page may be a dozen printed pages. People would get excited about Basic and start on projects to use it for computer arifical intelligence, for creation of English teaching CDs, for translation of Environmental Conference meeting -- all of which never reached completion. To salvage such work, a new website was established as a place for people to work together on Projects to advance Basic into the 21st Century and so that work of any one gifted person is not lost to the public. This activity is called the Basic English Institute -- with a goals to research changes in English usage, for example, computer and internet words ; development projects such as creating a spell-checker wordlist for use in word processing (complete); a translation dictionary from standard ; grammar checkers are in the future planning. English to Basic (21,000 words so far), the goal is to aid newspapers, public offices, and web authors to easily translate their writings into Basic understandable by all. ; teaching of Basic -- word pictures, reading software ; Education for teachers and researchers ; Sale of the few Basic English texts, ; maintaining a Forum for interchange by workers, for questions by students and comments by the interested public. Meanwhile, work continues in acquiring and making works in Basic available to the public. Unlike military forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, American corporate expatriates have the luxury of communication that comes to them easily. Their native tongue is English, and English, experts say, is the undisputed language of business. Because of this, most multinationals are not finding a major business need to train their employees in any other language, even though U.S.-based companies are entering more and more foreign markets. "English is the language of commerce," ==================================== English Rules From the Army to the CIA to NSA and FBI, a shortage of foreign language speakers is hitting the U.S. hard. And it would be reasonable to think that fast-growing multinational corporations might be experiencing a similar need. But that's not the case. While many global companies do support foreign language training for employees who can demonstrate a business need, others are not making a concerted effort to train their employees in tongues other than English. That's because it's still the language that business speaks. By Gretchen Weber Since January, more than 40,000 "survival language kits" have been sent to U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq. The kits, designed by linguists at the Department of Defense’s Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, are to help soldiers communicate with Iraqis during operations such as door-to-door weapons searches. They contain written phrases such as "Please step outside" and "Cover your women" and "The Marines are here to help you." They are necessary because only 1 in 100 soldiers in Iraq can actually speak Arabic, a critical shortage that dramatically affects the ability of U.S. forces to communicate on the ground. Capt. Frank Von Heiland, an operations officer for DLI, says that the ability to communicate clearly with locals saves lives and that linguists "have prevented needless shootings of vehicles by being able to tell folks to stop." The cost of not speaking the language, he says, can be extremely high. Soldiers might not be able to understand an Iraqi soldier, for example, who is standing right in front of them telling a comrade nearby that they are a good target, Von Heiland says. The shortage of foreign-language speakers affects more than just the military. The CIA has had to hire retirees and translators to fill critical intelligence roles in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And although the government is working to combat this dearth of critical language skills through recruiting and training, even officials at the DLI, which churns out 500 near-fluent Arabic speakers a year, say that the shortage will be a problem for a long time. (There are 3,800 linguists currently in intensive language training at the DLI; the largest numbers are enrolled in 63-week courses in Arabic, Korean and Chinese, at a cost of $49,329 per student.) The ability to communicate clearly with locals saves lives and linguists "have prevented needless shootings of vehicles by being able to tell folks to stop." It’s reasonable to think that fast-growing multinational corporations such as Procter & Gamble--which has 98,000 employees in more than 80 countries--that are expanding their operations in overseas markets like China and Japan might be experiencing a similar need and pursuing similar solutions. But many experts say that this is not the case. While many global companies do offer some level of support for foreign-language training for employees who can demonstrate a business need, either by taking an expatriate assignment or working closely with international teams, many multinationals are not making a concerted effort to train their employees in languages other than English. Even so, Procter & Gamble, IBM and Intel are among the companies that offer compensation for employees who opt to learn a foreign language for business-related reasons, often an expatriate assignment. Despite headlines over the past couple of years decrying Americans’ lack of foreign-language skills and hyping the dire need for speakers of critical languages such as Arabic and Korean in the armed forces, multinational corporations aren’t feeling the same urgency. In fact, as diverse cultures inch closer through global commerce and technology, training executives and managers to communicate locally is, surprisingly, a very low priority. Unlike military forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, American corporate expatriates have the luxury of communication that comes to them easily. Their native tongue is English, and English, experts say, is the undisputed language of business. Because of this, most multinationals are not finding a major business need to train their employees in any other language, even though U.S.-based companies are entering more and more foreign markets. "English is the language of commerce," says Chris Van Someren, president of global markets at Korn/Ferry. "There’s very little commercial application for foreign-language skills. Because of that, the need to help expatriates learn local languages is not high on the corporate agenda." But even though English may be the primary avenue of communication across cultures, some say that expatriates unschooled in the local language are at a distinct disadvantage. Nancy Lockwood, a human resources content expert at the Society for Human Resource Management, recently completed interviews with 30 international human resources professionals on the effects of foreign-language ability on the work of expatriates. While there are no hard facts and figures to prove her theory, her research indicates that American professionals positioned in overseas assignments who can communicate in the local tongue are more effective. They can build relationships more easily and earn the respect of their counterparts more quickly, thus paving the way for smoother business dealings. She says that because the benefits of foreign-language ability are hard to quantify and play out in relationship- building rather than in hard numbers, the business advantages of expatriates who can communicate in the local tongue can be undervalued because the repercussions of not knowing the local language are not readily obvious. "There’s very little commercial application for foreign-language skills. Because of that, the need to help expatriates learn local languages is not high on the corporate agenda." "It’s not black and white," Lockwood says. "What it comes down to is issues of rapport, respect and trust. If you’re working with someone and you want to really connect with them, it shows respect if you make an effort to speak their language. If you know the language, you can have a better understanding of the culture, and that can lead to trust. Trust can take a long time to establish, and it can take even longer if you only speak English." IBM, which has 319,000 employees in 170 countries across the globe, won’t disclose the amount of money it spends on employee foreign-language training. Procter & Gamble doesn’t even track the amount of money spent on foreign-language training for employees, spokeswoman Vicky Mayer notes. Companies say that in many cases, the benefits of foreign- language knowledge can lie outside the specific realm of business. That’s one reason why the programs are optional. Mayer says that the benefits are more to help each employee adjust to his or her new surroundings and to promote the company’s policy of being a good neighbor and becoming integrated into local communities than to help the executive conduct actual business. "As with most companies, English is our language of business," Mayer says. "However, we want our employees to be as comfortable as possible and to be able to integrate themselves into their new surroundings. Language training is a tool that gives employees a better sense of their new environment. It’s a tool to work with to achieve greater understanding of the host country." The company will reimburse expatriate employees for language training for their spouses as well. At IBM, company-subsidized foreign-language training is provided on a case-by-case basis, says Mia Vanstraelen, director of human resources for learning in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. If employees need foreign-language skills to do their job properly--for example, an expatriate manager who functions as the point person between an overseas operation and headquarters or a sales employee who deals with clients on the ground overseas--the company will provide financial support. In addition, company support is often available for employees seeking business-related skills to further their own careers within the company. "In my experience, customers like to have discussions in their local language," Vanstraelen says. "That’s for sure. But they also understand that if there’s a need for very specific expertise, we won’t always have that in the local language." She points out that although the value the customer is usually looking for is in knowledge and expertise and not language, some international partners do prefer dealing with an IBM representative who speaks their language. "We have to make a choice," she says. "Do we send the Italian speaker or do we send the person who is best technically? It’s a business decision we regularly face, and we make it on a case-by-case basis." A less-than-aggressive attitude toward foreign-language acquisition at the corporate level is typical, some experts say, and the reasons range from high cost to a lack of necessity. English, the language of business, the language of technology, the language of Hollywood, is the language to know in global business even for traditionally non-English-speaking countries. Kenneth Lieberthal, a China expert and professor of corporate strategy and international business at the University of Michigan, says that English is so dominant in business that when Koreans go to China, English is the language they use to conduct business. It’s usually a language the two sets of professionals have in common, he says. "We have to make a choice. Do we send the Italian speaker or do we send the person who is best technically? It’s a business decision we regularly face, and we make it on a case-by-case basis." As countries across the globe continue to require English instruction in schools, this reliance on English as the internationally recognized tongue for business will only increase. Chinese law mandates that English training begin in third grade. In India, more than 50 percent of citizens speak English in addition to at least one other language, according to the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C. English is a target language, notes Susan Steele, provost at DLI. While Americans have to decide which second language might be most useful for their business careers according to their areas of interest, potential business professionals in other countries whose native language is not English have a clear answer to that question. And as more students worldwide learn to conduct business in English, its position as the language of commerce solidifies. Even multinationals that are headquartered in other countries are using English as the language of business, Van Someren says. He cites Sony’s Berlin headquarters as an example. In that office, which has about 400 employees, there are 45 different nationalities and almost as many languages, he says. "So the cost and effort associated with trying to teach everyone German when a lot of them will be moving on to other assignments in a matter of months probably doesn’t make a lot of sense," he says. Language acquisition can be a slow process, and companies that need someone who speaks a foreign language can’t wait years for the right employee to gain the skills. When knowledge of a foreign language is what is specifically required, Van Someren says, that’s the skill set human resources looks for. "Corporations don’t come to me and say, ‘Help me find a great manager and we can teach him Chinese.’ They do say, ‘Help us find a great manager who already speaks Chinese.’ " Lieberthal says that in many ways, training high-level employees in a foreign language such as Chinese simply doesn’t make good business sense. "It’s a large investment with high front-end costs." In a language such as Chinese, which can take three years of study just to be able to converse, the rewards simply aren’t worth the time investment, he says. Top executives could harm their careers by taking time off to study a language, Lieberthal notes. "Business moves quickly. If you don’t move up, you’re out of the game. It would be hard to fit language training into the executive career ladder." In addition, he says, even if an executive were willing to put in the time to learn a language, the training just doesn’t make economic sense. An employer would have to not only cover the cost of language training as well as the executive’s salary, but also absorb whatever financial burden results from lost productivity. An executive sitting in the classroom memorizing vocabulary could be an investment in the future, but it would be a very costly one, Lieberthal says, and one that might not produce great returns. Lieberthal says that multinationals operating in a foreign country such as China will try to use employees who already speak Chinese. But there’s always a tension in play because what is most important for an overseas operation of a multinational firm is to have a manager at the helm with the job expertise and the significant clout at headquarters to both run the operation and communicate well with higher-ups at headquarters. Usually, he says, the candidates at this level with these qualifications are not the ones who can speak Chinese. So corporations choose business expertise over language know-how and bridge the communication barrier with translators. It’s not ideal, Lieberthal says, but it’s the better option. "If I had a choice between someone raised in China with good language skills who came through an MBA program and someone within the corporation who had done start-ups in Korea or Brazil but couldn’t speak the local language, I’d take the latter person." Lockwood says that without language skills, valuable cultural understanding is lacking, and it is harder to establish trust. That trust can be built through being able to communicate outside formal meetings, she says, and by making an expatriate more approachable to local employees or customers. The deeper cultural understanding can come from getting to know people on a more personal level--an extremely valuable asset when doing business in a place like Latin America, experts say--and also through specific and subtle language clues that would otherwise be missed. Lockwood asserts that language training does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition for corporations. The most common form of training, she says, is the less intensive model, which involves two or three hours a week and can fluctuate dramatically in cost. Some companies do rely on sending employees to language schools such as Language Exchange International in Boca Raton, Florida, or the Language and Cultural Center at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of Management, in Glendale, Arizona. Standard, non-customized immersion language classes at Thunderbird cost about $750 for 30 hours of instruction. At Language Exchange International, a private intensive class costs about the same--$750 for 32.5 hours of classes. Once the cost of training is added to travel expenses and lost productivity while the employee is away from work, the investment is just too high for some companies. Like Intel, they bring the classes in-house, or like many others, they stick to paying for part-time, after-work classes. Despite the reluctance of corporations to foot the bill for more extensive language training, employees with foreign-language skills remain sought after to fill various roles within companies. "Ironically," Van Someren says, "there’s still a premium associated with people who possess multiple language skills. There’s still a marketplace perception that fluency makes them better thinkers and more sophisticated cross-culturally." And some data exists to support the assertion that knowledge of the local language does, in fact, improve performance. A survey of MBA graduates from by top international business school Thunderbird, the Garvin School of Management, revealed that 82 percent of participants believe that knowing a foreign language gives them a competitive career edge. "In an ideal world, everyone would speak more languages and everyone would have technical expertise," IBM’s Vanstraelen says. Workforce Management, May 2004, pp. 47-50