English Language & Usage Asked on April 30, 2021
Is there a book or website or software with core English words that allow you to understand every English word?
These core words can give us the meaning of every English word in the entire English literature.
Let us say I want to write a book in English and I don’t want to use words that can be described with core words then where do I find the complete list of core words?
What I am saying is, it will be a book written using core words only, this book does not need other words, words that have a meaning defined using core words. So no words that can be defined with basic or core words are needed in this book. The text size will increase but it will be a book written using basic or core English words, words that don’t miss anything, words that can define every English word that ever existed and every word that will ever be added on time to time basis to ever growing English language. Let us say few new words need words that are not basic and I don’t want those words. For example let us say there is a new English word that needs a name of a place in its definition and this name of a place is not a basic or core word, then I don’t need such words.
All I want is all the basic or core English words that can describe anything or everything in the Entire Universe. For example let us say there is a word in English that can be defined using basic or core English words then I don’t want that word if that word can’t be considered as a core word too.
Kindly point me towards such a book or website or software that is already available on the internet.
Thanks.
In the tightly-defined world of mathematics, there are fundamental, core rules, which correspond to your core words in English. These core rules are called axioms.
It seems that you are looking for the axiomatic words in English. You can find these words in a dictionary, but they don't have good definitions. They have weasel words that describe things about the word.
Consider the definition of the most axiomatic, core word in English: the.
the, definite article
Definition of the (Entry 1 of 4) 1a—used as a function word to indicate that a following noun or noun equivalent is definite or has been previously specified by context or by circumstance put the cat out
b—used as a function word to indicate that a following noun or noun equivalent is a unique or a particular member of its class the President, the Lord
c—used as a function word before nouns that designate natural phenomena or points of the compass the night is cold
(and on it goes for another 3-1/2 definitions).
Did you see the definition of the? Neither did I. I see how the word is used, not what it means.
So a dictionary will contain the axiomatic words, but you can only detect the base words by their lack of definition. (This is a paradox with a hat-tip to @Anton and the reference to the Gödel's incompleteness theorem.)
An attempt was made
The author of the comic, xkcd, (a.k.a Randall Munroe), has written a book called Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words. He uses a core, axiomatic vocabulary of one thousand words to explain many everyday concepts and devices. For example, he has a page devoted to the
food-heating radio boxes (microwaves)
His pictures are worth ten hundred words, but you might be most interested in the ten hundred words in the back.
Alas, these thousand words only cover appliances and scientific concepts (although the orders-of-magnitude and astronomy pages are worth the price of the book).
While Thing Explainer deals with science and engineering, I know of no books that describe the axiomatic words of literature.
Correct answer by rajah9 on April 30, 2021
The question will probably be closed.
However, you raise fundamental and very interesting issues that relate, for example, to the function, purpose and structure of dictionaries. I therefore answer it.
In mathematics, Godel’s theorem deals with the impossibility of establishing all truths from a limited set of axioms.
David Hilbert proposed to ground all existing theories to a finite, complete set of axioms, and provide a proof that these axioms were consistent. Hilbert proposed that the consistency of more complicated systems, such as real analysis, could be proven in terms of simpler systems.
Godel proved Hilbert’s proposal to be unattainable.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems, published in 1931, showed that Hilbert's program was unattainable for key areas of mathematics. In his first theorem, Gödel showed that any consistent system with a computable set of axioms which is capable of expressing arithmetic can never be complete: it is possible to construct a statement that can be shown to be true, but that cannot be derived from the formal rules of the system. In his second theorem, he showed that such a system could not prove its own consistency, so it certainly cannot be used to prove the consistency of anything stronger with certainty. This refuted Hilbert's assumption that a finitistic system could be used to prove the consistency of itself, and therefore anything else
Your notion involves establishing all meanings from a limited set of words. It parallels Hilbert’s proposal.
In consequence, your notion is likely to be both formally and practically unattainable, which is why you have found no such site or reference: none will ever be found.
Answered by Anton on April 30, 2021
Is there a book or website or software with core English words that allow you to understand every English word?
No, and there never will be. In the first place, to understand such a book, you would have to understand every word. It would be of little use and indexing it would be a nightmare.
English words are either single words, e.g.
(i) “cat” from the Old English “catte” but which now has several meanings, or
(ii) compound words that start with “cat” as a prefix, e.g. “catalogue” “catatonic” cata = Greek κατα-, κατ-, καθ-, a preposition used to form compounds in various senses.
(iii) Catnip in which “cat” is redundant - Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin nepeta – the cat herb.
(iv) Two words that appear to be the same may have quite distinct origins.
The difficulty is clear – prefixes (and suffixes) were originally a single word but have evolved in different ways such that they now can imply quite distinct ideas, and compound words take on a meaning of their own.
Answered by Greybeard on April 30, 2021
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