Thoughts of Creating a
Special Word List: RELIGION

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Literature is represented by a general word list called Verse with 100 words. Words to Read the Bible, with 50 detail words, is addressed as a specialty. Basic English can make a valuable contribution to World harmony through recognition of expressions of commonality between the world's religions. Should Religion be expanded as a general topic or is Verse satisfactory, or should a new Literature category be created to incorporate the fundamental religious concepts? Are special word lists required with sub-categories of Bible, Koran, et al.?
    One genesis of Basic English was Ogden's recognition that normal language has an emotional content that hinders communication. Whereas God as defined in Basic English is a uniting word, like "one nation under God", whereas Allah, Christ, Jehovah, et al are words for the same concept that divide mankind and is the stuff of which wars are made. Note the lack of emotion, only pure communication, in "religious building", whereas differentiations as church, mosque, synagogue,etc. can have a strong divisive effect. See his Meaning of Meaning written with I.A. Richards ten years before Basic was introduced.
    The words in Basic English, Verse, and Bible are sufficient to have translated the entire "Bible in Basic English".
    We know Ogden's methodology: he used concepts. He would take the most recognized dictionary of the topic and whittle it down into concepts and then pick the most general, simple, widely understood, and regular word to represent each concept.


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The Basic English Words for Religion

Basic 850 :     religion (1 of 850 words)

International Words :     paradise (1 of 50 words)

Next 350 :     some are possibly useful.
ceremony , god , holiday , justice , magic , meaning , member , message , moral , obedient , officer , people, praise , prayer , priest , revenge , satisfaction , saving , service , spirit .

Verse : (100 words)
angel, arrow, beast, blind, bow, breast, bride, brow, bud, calm, child, cross, crown, curse, dawn, delight, dew, dove, dream, eagle, eternal, evening, evil, fair, faith, fate, feast, flock, flow, fountain, fox, gentle, glad, glory, God, grace, grape, grief, guest, hawk, heaven, hell, hill, holy, honey, honor, image, ivory, joy, lamb, lark, life, lion, lord, meadow, melody, mercy, noble, passion, perfume, pity, pool, praise, prayer, pride, priest, purple, rapture, raven, robe, rock, rose, rush, search, shining, shower, sorrow, soul, spear, spirit, storm, stream, strength, sword, thief, tower, travel, valley, veil, vine, violet, virgin, virtue, vision, wandering, wealth, weariness, weeping, wisdom, wolf, wonder.

Bible : (50 words)
altar, ark, ass, ax, baptism, blessing, captain, cattle, circumcision, cock, deceit, disciple, envy, flesh, forgiveness, generation, herd, heritage, husband, kingdom, leaven, leper, locust, master, neighbor, oath, ox, people, pillar, preaching, prophet, revelation, righteousness, saint, salvation, savior, scribe, sin, spice, tent, testament, thorn, tribe, virgin, widow, wife, witness, world, worship, wrath, yoke.

All of these words are associated with religion; the highlighted words standout as intimately associated with religion, although not that they are exclusive of religious connotation. Basic 850 is weak on such specifically religious words; we find only religion among the 850 and paradise is considered an International word. Thus with the existing Verse and Bible lists, we have 24 words with which to describe religious topics. Are others required?.

In other areas, the following words also overlap categories, which is a sign of their probable importance:
age , absorption , accident , address , arrangement , ash , barrel , bubble , bud , case , charge , clay , column , cross , demand , deposit , difficulty , effort , employer , exact , experiment, explanation , explosion , fan , fatigue , fresh , generation , ground , guard , habit , hill , interpenetration , jaw , joint , juice , kidney , license , liver , load , lung , mean , mud , origin , pair , proof , reference (3) , screen , shell , show , sight , spark , stable , stimulus , strain , stream , surface , sum , trap , tube , twin , valley , wild .



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Religion Concepts : there appear to be a limited number of generic concepts.



The Key Words

God.	"Father of all" in Basic English. The word god is in the second 350 words meaning deity or divinity. Capitalized, God is a Verse word. A single word should address this most fundamental concept. How generally understood is God; does it reach International standing? (It was not considered so originally and was included in a special word list.) This word in lower case implies non-religious social and historic images and idols and is also used in combined in words such as god-fearing . . . Two words are redundant because the capitalization rule converts a deity to a specific deity. Includes God, Jehovah, Lord, Allah, Holy Spirit, Great Sprite, Creator, etc.
Holy.	"possessed of religious significance", sacred. a Verse word. Possibly can be extended to: ordained, sanctified, dedicated.
Building.	"house of God|worship" Verse and Bible words. The same concept commonly stands for a congregational organization. We are looking for a word to accept : basilica, cathedral, chapel, church, mosque, meeting, pantheon, sanctuary, synagogue, temple, tabernacle, vestry, . . . Is a particularly touchy and valuable concept for peace and understanding.
Members.	Concept of a Congregation or large religious organization coming together. There is also a concept of an organization of officers of a religion.
Book.	The Book - Bible, Koran, Scripture, Talmud, Testament,.Torah, An extension is a quid essential reference work. Is capitalization of the Basic words "The Book" sufficient?
Ritual.	"form gone through (for religion)". Includes sacrament, atonement, baptism, communion, and so on.
Prayer.	request to higher authority. Prayer is both a Next 350 and Verse word.
Leader.	"Head|chief|officer of religion." Words for the front-line representative of the religion, leader of prayer services. Priest is both a Next 350 and Verse word. In Christianity alone we find : priest, minister, cleric, preacher, vicar, rector, parson, reverend, pastor, clergy, reader, and more. Basic forms include : servant of God, man of the cloth, churchman, one with the calling. The U.S. military uses a generic "padre". The Verse list contributes Preaching - by derivative, changing the -ing ending to -er, we have Preacher. Is there a better word(s)? The organizational hierarch or "Officer of Religion|God" is addressed by the "title rule" in which a proper noun title may be used directly, in its English form, if available. Thus : Father, Monsignor, Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal, and Pope is an example in one hierarchy.

A Start on Concepts

angel	servant of god
anointed	put oil on as act of religion,
altar	place for offerings to god|table in god's house
blasphemy	say things without respect
exorcism	send out bad
grace	god's favor; short prayer	(a Verse word.)
heaven	living place of god; sky	(paradise is an International word.)
hell | hades	(place of) unhappy condition
holy | sacred	special to god
idol	representation of god; person greatly loved|respected
oath|vow	undertaking in god's name; statement of truth
resurrection	come back from death
revelation	make clear
sacrifice	giving up something for god
saint	respected by church officers
service	the order of events as in church.	(a Basic extension of serve and also a Next 350 word.)
spell	magic words
sin	wrongdoing; (behavior) against law (of god)	(sin is a Bible word)
worship	love and respect.	(a Bible word.)
zealot	overmuch interest in a cause

Synonyms

anointed | christ | messiah
faithful | members | tribe
flesh | living
heathen | infidel | unbelievers
prophet | forecaster | seer | soothsayer, prophesize=make forecast
redemption | salvation | savior,
satan | devil | enemy | adversary,
sect | way | school,
spirit | soul | ghost   (spirit is both a Next 350 and Verse word.)
testimony | witness | testament,
wiseman | magi | rabbi | master | guru |teacher
witch | wizard
word | law

Specific cases are often capitalized and/or with "the".   The Book, The Punishment, The Word.

Related Secular Concepts

birth and death	clean and unclean	debt and plenty	feast and famine
good|fair|just and evil|wicked|foolish	freeman and slave	health and sickness	legal and illegal
light and dark	love and hate	marriage and divorce	moral and immortal
reward and punishment	rich and poor	sow and reap	sun and moon
true and false|perjury	virgin vs. harlot	join and separate

Animals:	ass, camel, dove, ox, sheep, etc.
Arms:	ax, arrow, bow, club, sling, spear, sword, etc.
Crime:	murder, thief, etc.
Music:	trumpet, flute, lyre, pipe, harp, dance, etc.
Family:	father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, etc.
Relationships:	widow, wife, husband, man, woman, child, girl, etc.

tithe | tax | toll | offering
holiday | feast | festival | pentecost | holy day  -   (holiday is a Next 350 word.)

Rule: A word or concept may be defined by use of any higher level words. The hierarchy here is the 850, International, complex words; Verse; then, Bible. Note that intermediate-level Basic, i.e. the Next 350 and operator (verb) forms of Basic "things (nouns), are certainly full of help.

The originator of this page had certainly underestimated the ability of Basic English to address general religion.
See download for a spell checking word list and translation software.

There are, of course, advanced concepts of religion that are not easily addressed in Basic -- or by the general public -- but Basic is basic and is not designed for advanced or complex ideas. Some Christian concepts left to the full English speaker include: baptism, crucifixion, divine, ghost, incarnate, resurrection, soul. Each religion has their own special ideas.

A first thought by the writer was that, in this age when religion seems to be replacing politics in international rivalry, it might right to move some key words, ie. "god, holy, worship", to higher level word lists so they may be used to more comfortably address common religious topics without the special word lists. Then maybe it is best to leave religion as a speciality and avoid arguments about Basic definitions -- church has the sense of building or organization for religion and we need concern ourselves with synonyms. Proper names are part of Basic.

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Back to: Ogden's Basic English   or   Basic English Institute
About this Page: GenReligion.html -- Thoughts on creating a General Religion word list containing 100 words that supplement Basic English for those interested in Religious topics. Conclusion, not needed, Basic does very well.
Last updated February 4, 2002 ; October 19, 2005
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URL: http://zbenglish.net/sites/basic/genreligion.html