Bharatpedia:How to write Indian English pages

Durlav Sarkar

Durlav Sarkar

Durlav Sarkar is celebrity Author

Basic English and VOA Special English

Bharatpedia follows some of the rules of Basic English, but is not so strict about using only a certain number of words. Every day, Indian English changes, and does not have only one-word list. A good starting point to write in Indian English is to learn to write using Basic English words. This helps you to write with a limited vocabulary.

Start with Basic English (BE) 850. Let us say that your readers know the BE 850 words. If your writing sounds strange or is not clear, use a less common word. The less common word may be in BE 1500 or Voice Of America (VOA) Special English.

Example

The example below shows why we do not insist on using only Basic English words. The full English sentence is from Winston Churchill:

Full English: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

Basic English [BE 850]: "... blood, hard work, drops from eyes, and body water."

• "Blood" is a BE 850 word.
• "Hard work" is good for those who understand English as their mother language. But a learner could understand the word "hard" as "solid" or "difficult to understand". Perhaps "much work" is better.
• "Drops from eyes" sounds strange to people whose mother language is English. "Tears" is a BE 1500 word, and you can use it.
• "Body water" also sounds strange to a person whose mother language is English. "Sweat" and "perspiration" both sound better. "Sweat" is a more common word, and you can use it by linking to the article on sweat. Often, for difficult words that are from Latin (such as "perspiration") there will also be a native (Old English or Anglo-Saxon) word such as "sweat" meaning the same thing that is much more common and basic, but this is not always the case.

Another way is to write the more difficult words, but explain what they mean in parentheses, "(" and ")", if they cannot be linked. For example, write "blood, toil (hard work), tears, and sweat".

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Other websites

• Ogden's Basic English web site
  • BE 1,500
  • Supplementary and Special Word Lists
  • BE Verbs
• VOA Special English official web site
• ASD Simplified Technical English
• Online utility for checking Basic English text – supports Basic English and various other dictionaries
• Writing and Publishing Program: online writing courses (from Simon Fraser University in Canada)
• Wordcount, a very rough, but easy to use, guide on how often words are used.