Mr. Woodhead Talks Before Shanghai Rotary Club have the feeling that a number fof those who have been hearing my talk are unconscious that it has been given In Basic English only", said it. H, G. W. Woodhead in the course of 'a ialk on Basic English to mem-[Bers of the Shanghai Rotary Club at the Metropole Hotel on June 24. Puting aside Esperanto as an unnatural tongue, Mr. Woodhead. said that for international language to. make uch headway, it must be based on living tongue. Of European languages, English was undoubtedly the one in widest use, but because of its complexity. its use as an inter~ fuational language depended upon Himiting the number of words, and jespeciaily verbs.
'A. short {ime ago a group of men of letters at Cambridge made an attempt to limit English to the smallest number of words necessary for every= Jday use in talking and writing, The Jouicome was the invention of the [system named "Basle English", And the suggestion was now made that this system lay a discovery which might be made use of for intérnational purposes. The number of words in Basic English was limited to 850, addition to special lists for sciences and other branches of learning, Basic English was an attempt ive everyone a knowledge of English that would take up as little of the learner's time as possible By the system in use, 650" English words might be made to do the work of Ino Jess than 20,000, "Disembark," for Instance, translated into Basic English would be "get off the ship, "dificult" would be "hard"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.