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Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell explained the basic principles of the language in an essay included as an appendix to the novel. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. The totalitarian aim of the Party is to prevent any alternative thinking — "thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of Newspeak – by destroying any vocabulary that expresses such concepts as freedom, free enquiry, individualism, resistance to the authority of the state and so on. One character, Syme, says admiringly of the diminishing scope of the new language: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

The Newspeak term for the English language is Oldspeak. The Party intends to replace Oldspeak completely with Newspeak before 2050 (except among the Proles, who are not trained in Newspeak and whom the Party regards as barely human and unimportant).

Orwell was inspired to invent Newspeak by the constructed language Basic English, which he promoted from 1942 to 1944 before emphatically rejecting it in his essay "Politics and the English Language". In this paper he deplores the bad English of his day, citing dying metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric, and meaningless words, which he claimed to encourage unclear thought and reasoning. Towards the end of the essay, Orwell states:

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions.

Basic principles

To remove synonyms and antonyms

The aim of Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple concepts (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink) that reinforce the total dominance of the State. Newspeak root words serve as both nouns and verbs, further reducing the total number of words; for example, "think" is both noun and verb, so the word thought is not required and can be abolished. The party also intends that Newspeak be spoken in staccato rhythms with syllables that are easy to pronounce. This will make speech more automatic and unconscious and reduce the likelihood of thought. (See duckspeak.)

In addition, words with negative meanings are removed as redundant, so "bad" becomes "ungood". Words with comparative and superlative meanings are also simplified, so "better" becomes "gooder", and "best" becomes "goodest". Intensifiers can be added, so "great" became "plusgood", and "excellent" and "splendid" become "doubleplusgood". Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix "-ful" to a root word (e.g., "goodthinkful", orthodox in thought), and adverbs by adding "-wise" ("goodthinkwise", in an orthodox manner). This would, of course, not prevent heretic statements such as "Big Brother is ungood", but not only would this statement sound absurd in the ears of the politically orthodox, it would also be impossible to understand exactly what the statement means, since all concepts and words that can be used to argue against Big Brother would be eradicated from the language.

Some of the constructions in Newspeak, such as "ungood", are characteristic of agglutinative languages, although foreign to English. It is possible that Orwell modelled aspects of Newspeak on Esperanto; for example "ungood" is constructed similarly to the Esperanto word malbona. Orwell had been exposed to Esperanto in 1927 when living in Paris with his aunt Ellen Kate Limouzin and her husband Eugène Lanti, a prominent Esperantist. Esperanto was the language of the house, and Orwell was disadvantaged by not speaking it, which may account for some antipathy towards the language.

To control thought

By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Some examples of Newspeak from the novel include crimethink, doublethink, and Ingsoc. They mean, respectively, "thought-crime", "accepting as correct two mutually contradictory beliefs", and "English socialism" (the official political philosophy of the Party). The word Newspeak itself also comes from the language. All of these words would be obsolete and have been from the "final" version of Newspeak, except for doubleplusungood in certain contexts.

Generically, Newspeak has come to mean any attempt to restrict disapproved language by a government or other powerful entity.

Vocabulary

The "A" group of words deals with simple concepts needed in everyday life (such as eating, drinking, working, cooking, and the like). It is almost entirely made up of words that already exist in the English language.

The "B" group of words is deliberately constructed to convey more complicated ideas. The words in this group are compound words with political implications, and aim to impose the mental attitude of the Party upon the speaker. For example, the Newspeak word "goodthink" roughly means "orthodoxy".

The "C" group of words deals with technical vocabulary and is supplementary to the other two groups. Since the Party does not want its people to have knowledge of more than one restricted subject, there is no Newspeak word for "science" as a whole. There are separate words for different fields.

See also

• Code word
• Controlled natural language
• Dumbing down
• Framing
• Language and thought
• List of Newspeak words
• Logocracy
• LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii
• Nadsat
• Neologism
• Political correctness
• Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
• Thought-terminating cliché
• 2 + 2 = 5
• Philosophy of Language

References

1. ^ Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four, "Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak", pp. 309–323. New York: Plume, 2003.
   Pynchon, Thomas (2003). "Foreword to the Centennial Edition" to Nineteen Eighty-Four, pp. vii–xxvi . New York: Plume, 2003.
   Fromm, Erich (1961). "Afterword" to Nineteen Eighty-Four, pp. 324–337. New York: Plume, 2003.
   Orwell's text has a "Selected Bibliography", pp. 338–9; the foreword and the afterword each contain further references.
   Copyright is explicitly extended to digital and any other means.
   Plume edition is a reprint of a hardcover by Harcourt. Plume edition is also in a Signet edition.
2. Illich, Ivan (1988). ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind (in English language). San Francisco: North Point Press. p. 109. ISBN 0-86547-291-2. The satirical force with which Orwell used Newspeak to serve as his portrait of one of those totalitarian ideas that he saw taking root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere can be understood only if we remember that he speaks with shame about a belief that he formerly held... From 1942 to 1944, working as a colleague of William Empson's, he produced a series of broadcasts to India written in Basic English, trying to use its programmed simplicity, as a Tribune article put it, "as a sort of corrective to the oratory of statesmen and publicists." Only during the last year of the war did he write "Politics and the English Language", insisting that the defense of English language has nothing to do with the setting up of a Standard English." {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
3. Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four.
4. OED: any corrupt form of English; esp. ambiguous or euphemistic language as used in official pronouncements or political propaganda.
5. 1984– notes: summary and analysis. Barnes & Noble.

Further reading

• Burgess, Anthony. Nineteen Eighty-Five. Boston: Little Brown & Co, 1978. ISBN 0-316-11651-3. Anthony Burgess discusses the plausibility of Newspeak.
• Green, Jonathon. Newspeak: a dictionary of jargon. London, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, 1984. ISBN 0-7102-0673-9.
• "Find in a library: Newspeak: A dictionary of Jargon", by Jonathon Green. Retrieved 21 April 2006.
• Klemperer, Victor. LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen.. Original German language editions.
• Klemperer, Victor & Watt, Roderick H. LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist's Notebook. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7734-8681-X. An annotated edition of Victor Klemperer’s LTI, Notizbuch eines Philologen with English notes and commentary by Roderick H. Watt.
• Klemperer, Victor & Brady, Martin (tr.). The language of the Third Reich: LTI - Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist's Notebook. London, UK; New Brunswick, NJ: Athlone Press, 2000. ISBN 0-485-11526-3 (alk. paper). Translated by Martin Brady.
• Young, John Wesley . Totalitarian Language: Orwell's Newspeak and Its Nazi and Communist Antecedents. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991. ISBN 0-8139-1324-1. John Wesley Young wrote this scholarly work about Newspeak and historical examples of language control.
• An independent compilation of the Newspeak language

• Use dmy dates from August 2012
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Fictional languages
• Controlled natural languages
• Words originating in fiction
• Censorship
• Historical deletion
• Propaganda techniques using words
• Philology
• Agglutinative languages