| OGDEN | Linguist who created Basic English as a simplified system of the English language based on 850 words (5) |
| ENGLISH | Language may be basic, reduced to 850 words (7) |
| CLAIBORNEPELL | Rhode Island senator who created Basic Educational Opportunity Grants |
| EPIC | Like a great story told on 850 pages |
| ARRIVAL | 2016 film starring Amy Adams as a linguist who communicates with aliens |
| BASICENGLISH | Programmer's 850-word vocabulary? |
| RICHARDS | I A ___, English linguist who worked with "23 Across" on Basic English (8) |
| GRADE | A category of a listed building; a music exam; or, meaning "step", word originally used in English as a unit of measurement of angles, now for a particular level of quality, rank etc (5) |
| DRJOHNSON | Name by which the lexicographer who wrote A Dictionary of the English Language and Lives of the Most |
| WEBSTER | Lexicographer noted for his 1806 publication A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language; or, the dramatist who wrote The Duchess of Malfi (7) |
| JOHNSON | Written about in James Boswell's Life, author of the Rambler essays and A Dictionary of the English Language who founded a literary club with Joshua Reynolds (7) |
| BIOCHEMICAL | When the ends of each of its letters are connected to those above and below, a simplified schematic of a famous structure |
| HXHHXHHXHHXHHXH | When the ends of each of its letters are connected to those above and below, a simplified schematic of a famous structure |
| NOAHWEBSTER | American lexicographer who published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, in 1806 |
| WEBSTERS | Published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language, what is this dictionary better known as? (8) |
| VOLAPUK | Artificial language based on English, French, German and Latin, invented by German priest Johann Martin Schleyer in c. 1879 (7) |
| SAMUELJOHNSON | 18th-century writer of A Dictionary Of The English Language (6,7) |
| ESPERANTO | International language based on words common to most European languages (9) |
| IDO | Language based on Esperanto is one and the same |
| GRIMM | The Brothers ---, German linguists who popularised such folk tales as Cinderella and Rapunzel (5) |
