Magic Dictionaries
The first step in learning any new language.
Do you know what the word keek means?
I didn’t. So, I looked it up.
This is what the dictionary said:
verb: peep surreptitiously.
“He keeked through the window”.
And so, now I do know what keek means.
Dictionaries are extremely useful. But they do have one problem — not everyone can use them.
If I didn’t know the meanings of the words peep, surreptitiously, he, though, and window, I could not have learnt the meaning of keek. If I didn’t know the meaning of surreptitiously (say), I’d have had to look that word up as well. And its definition might have included other words that I mightn’t have known (say attention).
For most of us who use dictionaries, this is not such a debilitating problem. That said, this problem does pose an interesting question.
This is the question:
What is the smallest set of words one needs to know, in order to use a dictionary?
For no better word, let’s call this smallest set the minimum vocabulary.
A minimum vocabulary is of immense importance — because a minimum vocabulary is a sort of internal magic dictionary, that lived inside your brain, that when combined with an ordinary dictionary, enables one to learn the meaning of any word.
This idea is not new.
Back in the 1930s, Charles K. Ogden developed a simplified version of English called Basic English, a “magic dictionary” consisting of 850 words. The goal was to create an international auxiliary language that could be easily learned and used.
Then in the 1940s and 50s, Edward Thorndike and Irving Lorge compiled the first word frequency lists to identify the most commonly used words in English. This research helped in identifying a core vocabulary essential for comprehension — again a sort of “magic dictionary”.
In 1953, Michael West created the General Service List (GSL), a “magic dictionary” of approximately 2,000 high-frequency words in English deemed essential for learners of English as a second language.
Research in the field continues to this day, and all of the above are being constantly extended and updated. And not just English, “magic dictionary” have been proposed for almost every language, from Arabic to Zulu.
Next time you want to learn a new language, find out what its “magic dictionary” is. And then master it. It will save you a lot of time.
