Simple Wikipedia, a user-made encyclopedia on the Internet (http://simple.wikipedia.org), is written in Simple English. What is “Simple English”?

Simple English is a kind of English that uses only “clear”* words and structures.

 
You use Simple English when you talk or write to someone who does not know much English. You also use Simple English when you talk to someone who knows English but who does not understand less common words or complex ideas (children, adults with learning problems, etc.). The rule for Simple English is:

 
 
Simple English is like other forms of English that have been designed for clear and immediate understanding: Plain English, Basic English, E-Prime. Here are some examples:

 
 
Simple English and “Plain English”  – Simple English is like “Plain English”: both are forms of English designed to be clear. But their publics are different. Simple English is designed for those who do not know much English (like beginning students of English) and so who can read sentence “B” above, but not “A” which is too idiomatic.  Plain English, on the other hand, is designed for Brits, Americans, Australians, etc. who are completely fluent in everyday, indiomatic English (for them sentence “A” above is clear), but who are not fluent in legal, administrative, and political jargon (as in the example of obscure bureaucratic English given above). Many of these Anglos are asking their governments to produce all official documents in Plain English. For details on the Plain English movements, click here.

Simple English and “Basic English”  Simple English is also like “Basic English” ("British American Scientific International Commercial"). But Basic English, invented by the American linguist C. K. Ogden in 1930, is more limited. It uses only the 850 most common words in English: see sentence “C” above for an example. For many years it was taught to immigrants. By combining these 850 words in new ways, immigrants learned to cover every possible expressive need.  Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and Franklin Roosevelt all supported Basic English at first. But after World War II the idea lost much of its popularity. For more details on the Basic English movements today, click here.

How is Simple English different from “Basic English”? We have just said that in Basic English, you have to combine the 850 most common words to say less common ideas. You cannot say, for example, “They are humming” since “hum” is not a common word; instead, you must say “They are making music with their mouths shut” since “make”, “music”, “mouth” and “shut” are among the 850 most common words. In Simple English, on the other hand, things are different. You can say anything you want – for example “They are humming” – provided that:

• you contextualize the less common words or structures so that their meaning is clear inductively; or

• you explain the less common words or structures in a note between parentheses after the word; or

• you put the less common words or structures in the the Simple English Dictionary (easier to use than the regular Wiki English Dictionary on the Internet, where your readers can go to check them. Note: Anyone can contribute a word to the Simple English Dictionary by writing the word with its suggested definition on an Entry Page. Attention: your word will be taken out if there is a combination of words in Basic English or another non-idiomatic word more commonly used in Plain English with the same general meaning.
  
  As a last possibility, in Simple English you can say anything you want if:

• you are certain that your readers are experts in the field you are talking about (like “Music”) and so will probably understand the English terms for most of the most important ideas in that field, without the need for contextualization, explanation or listing in the Simple Wiktionary. In our example, “hum” is part of the music annotation system used by English-language musicians; but musicians everywhere are familiar with that system; so “hum” can be used as a word of Simple English, when talking to any musician.

 
Simple English and E-Prime  Finally, Simple English is a little like “E-Prime” (English Prime), proposed by D. Bourland (a philospher) to make what we say “truly clear”. But this “invented language” sounds very artificial – much more than Simple English. For example, one of the rules in E-Prime is that you cannot use the verb "to be". You cannot say, for example, “That apple is bad”; you must say: “That apple seems bad to me.” This way, says Bourland, you make it clear that your thought is “subjective”.

In Simple English, on the other hand, it is perfectly all right to say “That apple is bad” since (1) all the words are clear and (2) the fact that you are only giving an opinion is at least implicit in your words (and thus clear enough). To learn to talk in E-prime, click here.