History Main / Newspeak

* Just about any academia, management, elitist organisation, or really any other group that is difficult to get into will develop something like this. Especially academia, which tends to think it should have total control of things like language (as in France).

* ''[[MASHTheSeries M* A* S* H]]'': Hawkeye is told that he is an "Unperson" when the Army mistakenly notifies his father of his "death."
* ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Angel One" where the aliens invite some of the Enterprise crew to an execution:

NewSpeak is a [[{{Fictionary}} fictive language]] invented by Creator/GeorgeOrwell for the novel ''NineteenEightyFour.'' Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, and the inhabitants of Oceania were 'encouraged' to think and converse in Newspeak.

As noted above, many features of Newspeak are in fact similar to the features of real life compounding languages, including German and Russian, but also many Native American languages. This gave Newspeak a certain "[[BlackSpeech totalitarian flavor]]" at a time when both Germany and Russia had totalitarian governments. This point may be lost today, if only due to the popularity of the phenomenon, the theory that there is a connection between language and social behavior being mostly discredited (after all, people can go through many different governments, totalitarian or not, without changing their language). Also, this makes Newspeak especially difficult to portray in a translation of NineteenEightyFour into a language that is already agglutinative. If the word for "bad" in your native language is already something like "ungood", translators will have a hard time coming up with a Newspeak version of it.

* [[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]

* ''NineteenEightyFour'' ([[TropeMaker Well]] [[CaptainObvious du'h]])

{{NewSpeak}} is a [[{{Fictionary}} fictive language]] invented by GeorgeOrwell for the novel ''NineteenEightyFour.'' Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, and the inhabitants of Oceania were 'encouraged' to think and converse in Newspeak.

Strictly speaking, neither German nor Russian is an agglutinative language. The difference between them and English is one of spelling, that in German a compound is written as one word ("Physiklehrer") while in English it is written as two ("physics teacher"). Russian in fact often will use a combination of "(noun-derived) adjective + noun" where German and English use "noun + noun" compounds. The feature that Orwell imitated in Newspeak was a way of combining clipped elements of different words into one, because that became very pronounced in the language used by the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes. However, linguistically speaking they are not that different from {{portmanteau}} words (e. g. "brunch") or [[FunWithAcronyms acronyms]] pronounced as words (e. g. "radar", "laser") and such constructions were freely, if less frequently, used before, after and apart from the two totalitarian regimes.

->[+'''{{NewSpeak}} ''[[TropeNamer Truspoke]]'' (introduced distinctive new terms in the English lexicon, including):'''+]

* {{Doublethink}}

Some Orwellian phrases have been replaced by modern equivalents; ''bellyfeel'' never caught on, [[PerfectlyCromulentWord despite the usefulness]] of a word to describe "that which is calculated to give a positive gut reaction", possibly because it sounds childish and begs to be used literally. The appearance of ''[[StephenColbert truthiness]]'', which contains the same meaning (that Orwell intended, not [[InUniverse Ingsoc]]) and ''mouthfeel'' which ''does'' literally mean "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin how a piece of food feels in the diner's mouth]]" in the past decade have probably ended ''bellyfeel'''s chances.

* [[GeorgeOrwell Orwellian]]

->[+'''{{NewSpeak}} ''[[TropeCodifier thoughtmade]]'' the following tropes:'''+]

!!!'''{{NewSpeak}} ''[[{{Tropes}} Examplestrope]]'' (contains examples of):'''

** Miniplenty/[[TheMovie Miniprod]] ([[BlatantLies Ministry of Plenty]]) keeps the population in a state of starvation.

The goal of Newspeak was essentially the reduction of vocabulary and destruction of words, especially synonyms and antonyms, and to render language instinctively euphemistic (if "good" already exists then "bad" will be abolished, instead replaced by "ungood"), so as to suppress any possibility of expressing rebellious thoughts against the party in the form of words. Based on on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English#Rules the rules of Basic English]] and the (now [[LanguageEqualsThought discredited]]) strong form of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis]] (the weak form is also controversial), it was intended to be a psychological and linguistic RestrainingBolt on the population of [[AirstripOne Oceania]]. Its construction is similar to {{Esperanto}} (Ungood/Malbona) and other compounding languages (such as German). Contraction conventions from historical totalitarian regimes were also incorporated, resulting in words like "Ingsoc" which are similar in construction to "Comintern", "Nazi" and "Gestapo". Acronyms are used extensively. The Party predicted (or propagandized) that Newspeak would completely supplant English by 2050. Every edition of the Newspeak Dictionary was ''smaller'' than its predecessor.

The goal of Newspeak was essentially the reduction of vocabulary and destruction of words, especially synonyms and antonyms, and to render language instinctively euphemistic (if "good" already exists then "bad" will be abolished, instead replaced by "ungood"), so as to suppress any possibility of expressing rebellious thoughts against the party in the form of words. Based on the (now [[LanguageEqualsThought discredited]]) strong form of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis]] (the weak form is also controversial), it was intended to be a psychological and linguistic RestrainingBolt on the population of [[AirstripOne Oceania]]. Its construction is based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English#Rules the rules of Basic English]], and is similar to {{Esperanto}} (Ungood/Malbona) and other compounding languages (such as German). Contraction conventions from historical totalitarian regimes were also incorporated, resulting in words like "Ingsoc" which are similar in construction to "Comintern", "Nazi" and "Gestapo". Acronyms are used extensively. The Party predicted (or propagandized) that Newspeak would completely supplant English by 2050. Every edition of the Newspeak Dictionary was ''smaller'' than its predecessor.

The goal of Newspeak was essentially the reduction of vocabulary and destruction of words, especially synonyms and antonyms, and to render language instinctively euphemistic (if "good" already exists then "bad"will be abolished, instead replaced by ngood", so as to suppress any possibility of expressing rebellious thoughts against the party in the form of words. Based on the (now [[LanguageEqualsThought discredited]]) strong form of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis]] (the weak form is also controversial), it was intended to be a psychological and linguistic RestrainingBolt on the population of [[AirstripOne Oceania]]. Its construction is based on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English#Rules the rules of Basic English]], and is similar to {{Esperanto}} (Ungood/Malbona) and other compounding languages (such as German). Contraction conventions from historical totalitarian regimes were also incorporated, resulting in words like "Ingsoc" which are similar in construction to "Comintern", "Nazi" and "Gestapo". Acronyms are used extensively. The Party predicted (or propagandized) that Newspeak would completely supplant English by 2050. Every edition of the Newspeak Dictionary was ''smaller'' than its predecessor.

The goal of Newspeak was essentially the reduction of vocabulary and destruction of words, especially synonyms and antonyms, and to render language instinctively euphemistic, so as to suppress any possibility of expressing rebellious thoughts against the party in the form of words. Based on the (now [[LanguageEqualsThought discredited]]) strong form of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis]] (the weak form is also controversial), it was intended to be a psychological and linguistic RestrainingBolt on the population of [[AirstripOne Oceania]]. Its constructions are similar to {{Esperanto}} (Ungood/Malbona) and other compounding languages (such as German). Contraction conventions from historical totalitarian regimes were also incorporated, resulting in words like "Ingsoc" which are similar in construction to "Comintern" and "Gestapo". Acronyms are used extensively. The Party predicted (or propagandized) that Newspeak would completely supplant English by 2050. Every edition of the Newspeak Dictionary was ''smaller'' than its predecessor.

* [[StateSec Thought]] [[SecretSec Police]]

* Thoughtcrime

* Thought Police

* Many, many internet terms (aka netspeak or leet). For example: Blog, Vlog, l.o.l., longphoto, to google, to youtube.

* Doublethink

---> '''Homer:''' "I want the whole package! Coffin, tombstone, and anti-stink spray!"\\

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* [[BigBrotherIsYourFriend Big Brother]]

Orwell provided [[{{Fictionary}} an appendix]] discussing the features of the language in the novel. The appendix, ostensibly from an unspecified time after the events of the novel, written in Standard English and speaking of Newspeak, the Party, and Oceania in the past tense, implies that Newspeak is no longer in general use.

Neologisms that are based on Newspeak syntax but not coined by Orwell have also appeared, the most notable being ''[[TooManyCooks groupthink]]'' (describing a group thought process where everybody is going along with everybody else and no one is thinking rationally). [[LifeImitatesArt Frighteningly often]] such words are coined in political/media circles (and the [[MemeticMutation Internet]]). For instance, ''[[FromACertainPointOfView doublespeak]]'' has retained its Orwellian connotations, even though [[BeamMeUpScotty he never said it]].

** That's one side of it. The other is the fact that due to the Giver system, a great deal of the very concepts of the old world (stavation, war, etc) have been or are in the process of being completely scrubbed out of the collective consciousness this way almost passively. ReleasedToElsewhere is a prime example: it is a DeadlyEuphemism that nobody save the Giver even KNOWS is a euphemism because they have ceased to have virtually any concept of death. Which means that the authorities that order it and the doctors that preform it likely [[FridgeHorror probably don't realize the full ramifications of what they are doing.]] In short: [[UpToEleven NewSpeak so powerful and entrenched that even those that mandate it and enforce don't really recognize it for what it is.]] [[ParanoiaFuel Care to imagine the kind of psychological tampering THAT would require?]]

As noted above, many features of Newspeak are in fact similar to the features of real life compounding languages, including German and Russian, but also many Native American languages. This gave Newspeak a certain "[[BlackSpeech totalitarian flavor]]" at a time when both Germany and Russia had totalitarian governments. This point may be lost today, if only due to the popularity of the phenomenon, the theory that there is a connection between language and social behavior being mostly discredited (after all, people can go through many different governments, totalitarian or not, without changing their language). Also, this makes Newspeak especially difficult to portray in a translation of NineteenEightyFour into a language that is already agglutinative. If the word for "evil" in your native language is already something like "ungood", translators will have a hard time coming up with a Newspeak version of it.

{{NewSpeak}} is a [[{{Fictionary}} fictive language]] invented by GeorgeOrwell for the novel ''NineteenEightyFour.'' Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, and the inhabitants of Oceania were encouraged to think and converse in Newspeak.

** Isn't that how QueenVicky [[RoyalWe spoke]]?

** This isn't Newspeak, as it is simply the reverse of our RealLife curse words. Right now you can say "fight" and "hate" but "fuck" is bad. In that peaceful society with no crime, "fight" and "hate" are bad things no one should say, while "fuck" is just fine, it's another name for sex, which is open for everyone and considered good.

** President Clark even created a real Minipax. It's actually called that. Apparently, nobody in the 23rd century reads any Orwell except for President Clark, who has a sick sense of humor.
*** While it was called the Ministry of Peace, one of the guys who worked for it mentioned they called it "Minipax" as an inside joke; suggesting they were fully aware of the reference. Possibly a case of lampshading.

Strictly speaking, neither German nor Russian is an agglutinative language. The difference between them and English is one of spelling, that in German a compound is written as one word ("Physiklehrer") while in English it is written as two ("physics teacher"). Russian in fact often will use a combination of "(noun-derived) adjective + noun" where German and English use "noun + noun" compounds. The feature that Orwell imitated in Newspeak was a way of combining clipped elements of different words into one, because that became very pronounced in the language used by the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes. However, linguistically speaking they are not that different from {{portmanteau}} words (e. g. "brunch") or [[FunWithAcronyms acronyms]] pronounced as words (e. g. "radar") and such constructions were freely, if less frequently, used before, after and apart from the two totalitarian regimes.

* The Church of Scientology has a lot of newspeak in its terminology.