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Jan 29, 2009 
By 
Frenchman Jean-Paul Nerriere is promoting a new worldwide common language. But where past attempts at a linqua franca for business and simple communications, such as Esperanto and Interlingua, failed or never made it beyond hobbyists, Globish may succeed. In fact, it may not be new to you: It’s simplified English.
In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed.
He, Jean-Paul Nerriere, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly.
But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others.
In other words, Monsieur Nerriere concluded, a new form of English is developing around the world, used by people for whom it is their second language.
According to Narriere, Globish is just a rules-based system for speaking a form of English that is already spoken the world over.
Globish has only 1,500 words and users must avoid humour, metaphor, abbreviation and anything else that can cause cross-cultural confusion.
They must speak slowly and in short sentences. Funnily enough, he holds up the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an excellent exponent.
In fact, Globish sounds, in some ways, like a perfect means for communicating over the internet. Certainly it would be useful to me. On more occasions than I can count, I have had difficulty communicating with readers who do not understand humor, metaphor, or, most commonly, irony and sarcasm (at least as I practice them). Oddly, my difficulties in this regard are most noticeable when communicating with fellow native English speakers. Globish would cut through the knot of sarcasm and irony, by requiring us to avoid them, even, with its tiny, regularized vocabulary, preventing us from using them.
On the other hand, perhaps Globish will never be necessary. Litigation, hate and harassing speech laws, nannystatism, government bullying, and political correctness will get us the Globish we deserve soon enough.
Via Patrick Joubert Conlon and the Pagan Temple.
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