A Special-Purpose Language

August 5, 2006 2:17 AM

The New York Times profiles Special English, a 1500-word language used by the Voice of America "to spread American news and cultural information to people outside the United States who have no knowledge of English or whose knowledge is limited." The article notes that the language has the potential to play a valuable role in the bilingual education of recent immigrants to the U.S.
posted by NYCinephile (24 comments total)

There's also the simple english wikipedia.
posted by delmoi at 2:20 AM on August 5, 2006

Solid, thanks.
posted by toma at 4:04 AM on August 5, 2006

Isn't that special! Let's talk to foreigners like they're retarded.

As an ESL teacher, listening to VOA makes me cringe. Speaking slowly is useful for getting people to understand your show here and now, but I do not think it is particularly helpful in learning the language in the long run. Special English doesn't model natural English sentence stress, elision, intonation, stress-timing, etc.

But I could be wrong. One reader writes back:

From Nigeria: “It is with great joy that I am writing this letter to you, commending you on the interesting program you have been broadcasting to us in your Special English program. A very delightful program. I cannot afford to miss it even for a minute. I would rather miss a meal than to miss this program. You really touch our lives positively in this part of the world where English is a second language to us and we are very grateful. Long live VOA Special English.”

You'll note that the Nigerian can use metaphors, can have more than one idea in a sentence, and can use big fancy words like "commend" and "delightful".

UK ESL texts tend to treat learners like people who don't happen to speak English. I don't know why this is, but US ESL teaching materials, probably thanks in part to the great work at VOA, confuse lack of abiulity to speak English with stupidity.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:38 AM on August 5, 2006

abiulity = ability
posted by Meatbomb at 5:39 AM on August 5, 2006

Yeah ... Deutsche-Wells's "Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten" is a much smarter approach. Normal vocab + slower speed.
posted by RavinDave at 5:53 AM on August 5, 2006

This seems to have the same problems as the old discredited Basic English.

In English, the common words have many meanings. You can "set out to use small set of words", but a foreigner may find it easier to understand if you "Use a limited vocabulary."
posted by hexatron at 6:33 AM on August 5, 2006

Especially when speaking to Europeans, it's the big fancy words that are usually easy to understand, because of all the Greek / Latin roots, cognates, etc. Photosynthesis, orchestra, specification, specialisation, university, hospital, idealism, intelligence, stuff like that: all more or less the same words, all over Europe.

Learning ESL teachers often make the mistake of thinking "small words" are "easy words", when in fact the small ones are more often idiomatic, are phrasal verbs with non-transparent meanings, have Saxon roots... So, easy little words like "get", "did", "went" are the most obtusely Englishy of our words, and therefore often the most alien and tricky for the learners.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:49 AM on August 5, 2006

double plus ungood!!!

/I know, obvious.
posted by exparrot at 6:55 AM on August 5, 2006

by analogue, would anybody know how to get broadcasts of Special Farsi or Special Korean?
posted by eustatic at 7:07 AM on August 5, 2006

Or special Spanish...they need to slow down.
posted by sluglicker at 8:22 AM on August 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

I haven't heard VOA in a couple of years, but the special English programs really do seem to have been thought up by somebody whose only experience with foreign languages was to be a monolingual tourist. But then, as they always say on VOA "And that's how America works!"

Compared to BBC World Service, Radio France Internationale, Radio Canada, and just about every other shortwave radio program on the dial, the Voice of America is an unlistenable, amature mess filled with propoganda and elementary school civics class messages. It reflects a world view that everybody outside of the US must be some kind of childlike empty vessel just waiting to be filled up with jolly Americanism.

Radio Moscow - in it's pre 1990 heyday - used to be like that: "And now, Johnny Smith of the State of West Viginia writes to us, 'How many shoes are produced in the People's Republic of Tajikistan every year...' Well, Johnny, we asked the director of the Lenin Shoe Factory in Dushanbe you question and..."
posted by zaelic at 8:29 AM on August 5, 2006

I like how we don't call it stupid, or slow, or even simple. It's 'special'.
posted by graventy at 8:30 AM on August 5, 2006

They should just use Loud English. That always seems to work in foreign countries!
posted by bink at 8:32 AM on August 5, 2006

Graventy, I was wondering the same thing. Most simplified versions of languages have something to do with 'simple', or 'clear'. I wonder what exactly they mean by 'special', because it makes me think of something we say in Minnesota, where 'different' to mean 'bad'.
posted by taursir at 9:32 AM on August 5, 2006

i don't really understand why so many of you are hating on special english. maybe the VOA content sucks, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea to try to make the language easier to understand for people that may not have a large english vocabulary.

this also reminds me of a time when a friend of mine was trying to explain the verb "to front" to a non-native english speaker. he explained that fronting was the opposite of representing. i'm not sure that was sufficient clarification of the nuance of the term, but it was funny.
posted by snofoam at 9:39 AM on August 5, 2006

I actually enjoy the Special English broadcasts on shortwave. The cadence is so odd, so stilted, it's like listening to the AT&T mechanized weather broadcasts reading the newspaper after a long day at work. And it makes great fodder for sound-art.
posted by mykescipark at 9:54 AM on August 5, 2006

Interesting that in the Simple English Wikipedia the word "love" was too complex. "Mind" is way too simple.

Their take on VOA Special English.

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein.
posted by nickyskye at 10:43 AM on August 5, 2006

I don't mean to do anything resembling defending VOA in any way, but I might be able to grok "Special Spanish": Aquí está un gato. El gato es negro. At 1/4 normal Mexican speed. But I can read a menu or newspaper okay, with a Spanish/English dictionary, and maybe a book like 501 Spanish Verbs, and all afternoon.
posted by davy at 10:54 AM on August 5, 2006

Meatbomb, I was drawn to the same Nigerian quote, and the zealous devotion of "I would rather miss a meal than to miss this program," sounds positively snark to me, like Don Novello as Lazlo Toth.

So, howabout the NYT: Words can be added or dropped from the vocabulary. “Sabotage,” a word used often in the World War II era, may be dropped because it is rarely used in news stories today.

Or because we don't want to give the VOA listeners any big ideas.
posted by eegphalanges at 12:49 PM on August 5, 2006

Sabotage dropped? Obviously this is a scheme against the Beastie Boys.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:20 PM on August 5, 2006

I wonder if that Special English might ironically be harder for native English speakers to understand. At least that's the thought I had when looking for SE Wikipedia's "random page" link--I ended up guessing it was "show any page," which is really too vague.
posted by kittyprecious at 3:12 PM on August 5, 2006

I'm as liberal as they come, but I knew before I opened this thread that I'd read complaints about Special English being condescending, and comparisons of the VOA to Radio Moscow or Radio Pyongyang. America evil durr!

This thread delivers!
posted by elmwood at 8:13 PM on August 5, 2006

I'm struck by the strong opinions this posting has generated.

The Times article caught my attention because I know several individuals with limited English language skills and am interested in educational tools, not because I have a strong point-of-view regarding the VOA's mission.
posted by NYCinephile at 5:18 AM on August 6, 2006

Can Simple English even be considered a language, rather than simply a form of the English language? It can be compared to Signed English, which is a visual form of English, but not a unique language. (American Sign Language has been repeatedly proven, however, to be a genuinely unique language.)
posted by etoile at 1:17 PM on August 7, 2006