IT'S a new "language" and it's helping people from different nations and different backgrounds to communicate with each other, the International Herald Tribune reported recently.

　　Welcome to the world of Globish. Its method is simple: a vocabulary of only 1,500 English words and gestures (the Oxford English Dictionary by comparison, has 615, 000 entries).

　　"It's not a language, it's a tool," explains the inventor, Jean-Paul Nerrière, a retired IBM marketing executive. He explains further, "A language is the vehicle of a culture. Globish doesn't want to be that. It's a means of communication."

　　Globish is not seen the same way that utopian efforts such as Esperanto were. These world languages were closely examined and were found wanting. They have not proven to be the languages the world was looking for. Other people have advocated taking a "living" language like English, French, Spanish, German or Russian and making it into an international language. But experts say that this doesn't work. Nationalistic jealousies and rivalries would result in utter failure for such an attempt.

　　Globish is sort of English "lite". It's a means of simplifying the language and giving it rules so it can be understood by everyone.

　　The point, Nerrière says, is to reach the edge of understanding. But, even "understanding" is not on the 1,500-word list. "In Globish it would be the target, the goal, the objective. I use three words to reach the point where you would be understood everywhere."

　　The list goes from "able" to "zero". "Niece" and "nephew", to use two examples, are not included. "But you can replace them with the children of my brother," Nerrière says. He feels his mistake was in putting in both "beauty" and "beautiful", and "much" and "many" but not "a lot".

　　"'Much' is for ideas, 'many' is for things you can count. 'A lot' works in both cases. Others require a little more 'understanding''', he says, joking.

　　"The language spoken by 88 percent of mankind is not exactly English," Nerrière says. "I don't think that people who think it gives them an edge are right. That's because it's not useful if they're not understood by English speakers." His book, Parlez Globish, is an attempt to record worldspeak. Since its publication in Paris last year, he says, his Web site www.jpn-globish.com has had almost 36,000 hits.

　　The Web site also includes song lyrics. That's because Nerrière thinks it's an excellent way to learn words, even if they are not on the Globish 1,500. "It doesn't matter," he replies happily. "I saw 'A Chorus Line' several times on Broadway and I know all the songs by heart. I never understood the line 'If Troy Donahue [US 1960s TV star] can be a movie star you can be a movie star,' but I managed to get it well enough in a way it could be understood."