Newspeak

SPOKEN BY

The inhabitants of the totalitarian country of Oceania are having their native language changed from Oldspeak (English) to Newspeak, a change the state desires because Newspeak, with its reduced vocabulary and removed shades of meaning, will force citizens to think in a limited way.

DOCUMENTED BY

George Orwell describes Newspeak in the dystopian future of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). The language is then heard again in the 1956 and 1984 films of the same name (sometimes “1984”).

BEHIND THE WORDS

George Orwell had praised the constructed language Basic English in the early 1940s. Seeing what was lost in the process and how English was being altered for the worse, however, he changed his point of view, publishing his thoughts in the essay “Politics and the English Language” (Horizon, 1946). In 1984 he takes the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to its logical conclusion: The government controls thought by controlling language. In the totalitarian future, according to Orwell, thoughtcrime will eventually become impossible because there will be no words with which to express it.

DERIVATION OF THE LANGUAGE

Newspeak is derived from English, condensing and reducing it in order to remove choice, which suggests free will.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LANGUAGE

Many of the words in Newspeak are combinations of contradictory ideas.

Newspeak features short, punchy words and syllables.

A TASTE OF THE LANGUAGE

bellyfeel (noun)—an idea that has become internalized into a gut instinct

blackwhite (noun)—the concept of being able to replace black with white without believing the color was ever different

duckspeak (noun)—the ability to speak without considering the content, and to repeat rote phrases, statements, and arguments

thoughtcrime (noun)—when one thinks of something one shouldn’t

unperson (noun)—a person who has been removed from the public record and personal memories (note that memory is not considered private)

SOME USEFUL PHRASES

For examples of Newspeak in action, study any available political speech or corporate position paper. As to usefulness, that’s a matter of perspective.

PHILOLOGICAL FACTS

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is often incorrectly credited with creating the words doublespeak (coined in the 1950s) and groupthink (first used by William H. Whyte in Fortune Magazine in 1952).

The character Syme in the novel is at work on a new dictionary of Newspeak. “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words,” he tells Winston Smith, the novel’s protagonist. Shortly after, Syme vanishes; he has become an unperson.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Review the works listed above and the resources listed in the bibliography. and the web page: “Doublespeak” (www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=doublespeak).

SPEAKING OF LANGUAGES

None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead—stone dead—and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul.

—Charles Dickens