Monday, June 19, 2006

Simple English Wikipedia

The Wikipedia has a Simple English version using a limited word list. This idea appeals to me because I have difficulty writing ordinary English, even though it is my only language. Getting words out is a daily struggle. Simplified English might help me write better.

Also I see the difficulty readers have, especially during a presentation, when they are trying to read the words from a screen. Many of the readers have English as a second (or third) language. So simplified English should help when my words are machine translated to other languages, such as Chinese,
French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

The Wikpedia suggests loading the Basic English institute's limited list of works into OOO's spelling dictionary. But there don't seem to be grammar tools for helping with simplified English.

The Wikipedia also has a set of pictures for the 200 "Picturable" words.This opens interesting possibilities for the translation of Basic English into pictograms. Unfortunately the pictures in the WikiPedia list are not suitable as pictograms.

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