English-language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
edition of
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
written primarily in
Basic English
Basic English (a backronym for British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is a controlled language based on standard English, but with a greatly simplified vocabulary and grammar. It was created by the linguist and philo ...
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
or creole. The site has the stated aim of providing an encyclopedia for "people with different needs, such as students, children, adults with learning difficulties, and people who are trying to learn English."
Simple English Wikipedia's basic presentation style makes it helpful for beginners learning English. Its simpler word structure and syntax, while missing some nuances, can make information easier to understand when compared with the regular
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition.
English Wikipedia is hosted alongside o ...
.
History
The Simple English Wikipedia was launched on September 18, 2001.
In 2012,
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
' Helen A.S. Popkin that the Simple English Wikipedia does not "have a high standing in the
Wikipedia community
The Wikipedia community, collectively and individually known as Wikipedians, is an online community of volunteers who create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Wikipedians may or may not consider themselves part of the Wikimedia mo ...
", and added that it never had a clear purpose: "Is it for people under the age 14, or just a simpler version of complex articles?", wrote Popkin.
Material from the Simple English Wikipedia formed the basis for One Encyclopedia per Child, a project in One Laptop per Child that ended in 2014.
In 2018, it was proposed for closure due to a claim that no proof exists that the
target audience
The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of cons ...
was catered to, but the proposal was rejected due to unjustified policies and lack of approval.
As of , the site contains over content pages. It has more than registered users, of whom have made an edit in the past month.
Website structure
The articles on the Simple English Wikipedia are usually shorter than their
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition.
English Wikipedia is hosted alongside o ...
counterparts, typically presenting only basic information. Tim Dowling of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' newspaper explained that "the Simple English version tends to stick to commonly accepted facts". The interface is also more simply labeled; for instance, the "Random article" link on the English Wikipedia is replaced with a "Show any page" link; users are invited to "change" rather than "edit" pages; clicking on a red link shows a "page not created" message rather than the usual "page does not exist". The project encourages, but does not enforce, the use of a vocabulary of around 1,500 commonly used English words that is based on
Basic English
Basic English (a backronym for British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is a controlled language based on standard English, but with a greatly simplified vocabulary and grammar. It was created by the linguist and philo ...
, an 850-word controlled natural language created by
Charles Kay Ogden
Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was a British linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an Eccentricity (behavior), eccentric and Emic and etic, outsider, he took part in many ventures related to lit ...
in the 1920s.
See also
*
Plain English
Plain English (also referred to as layman's terms) is a mode of writing or speaking the English language intended to be easy to understand regardless of one's familiarity with a given topic. It usually avoids the use of rare words and uncommon euph ...