Author: Robert Henderson
Published on: September 26, 2000
"Words have in this imperfect world lives of their own," writes historian Crane Brinton, "and to kill a word is at least to acquire some kind of trophy." Humans do in fact seem to have an instinctive understanding of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which holds that any concept that can't be expressed in language, can't be thought, either. Rare is the revolution that doesn't attempt to sandbag natural language to prevent its subjects from thinking counter-revolutionary thoughts, as the recent invention of Croatian attests. Their activities seldom contribute anything of value to the quest for communication.
Newspeak is an old idea
George Orwell is universally associated with this pernicious phenomenon. A Communist who violently opposed totalitarianism regardless of sponsor, Orwell savaged Soviet Communism for selling out the Revolution. In 1984, published in 1949, Orwell's speculative "English Socialist Party" invents Newspeak, an impoverished dialect of English, solely to prevent people from expressing, and therefore thinking, thoughts that contradict the official line. Thus Orwell mocked the politically correct speech that Stalin forced on the Soviet people. (The term "politically correct" actually originated in Soviet Russia) The goal of Newspeak, as an exhaustive appendix to 1984 explains, is to suppress precision in favour of awkward, fuzzy neologisms. The Party accomplishes this by cutting vocabulary and forcing a relative, agglomerative structure on English. Note the dampening effect that such tinkering has on protest:
Oldspeak: "It's too warm in here."
Newspeak: "It's too uncold in here."
Logs and splinters
Orwell had an extraordinary talent for identifying essential truths and describing them in such a way as to make them undeniable. (Sadly, his works have not stopped dictators large and small from denying them all the same.) He remains one of the world's most popular writers, inspiring pages of online commentary in many languages, as well as online chats, and at least one provocative e-zine. Most online Orwell quoters are rightwingers, probably due to confusion over Orwell's own politics; though he actively opposed Communist dictatorship, in no sense was Orwell right wing. It's ironic to see his name invoked in foamy rants against "socialist One World Order." Given that the only global conspiracy left today is multinational corporate capitalism, it's likely that Orwell would be skewering that, were he alive today, rather than fantasy Communists. Nor have leftwing commentators failed to cite right wing use of Orwellian non-language in their criticism.
In fact, both left and right are guilty of Orwellian aspirations. Though the politically-correct movement's relentless assault on frank discourse is an obvious example, Ronald Reagan's linguistic pattycake was easily as cynical as any the Soviets dished out. In fact, the principle that power breeds Newspeak is nowhere more evident than in the US, where jibber-jabber like "right-sizing" and "unrequested armed assistance" keeps George Orwell spinning in his grave.
Mushrooms and toadstools
Not all politically-motivated vocabulary adjustments constitute Newspeak, of course; if proposed terms are more accurate, or fill gaps in the language, they're actually the opposite of Newspeak. Ms. and First Nations come to mind. The inventors of the first intended it to be Newspeak, i.e., a term that everyone would be forced to use at all times. In practice it's become a much-needed title for women whose marital status is unknown, or for women who are uncomfortable with traditional terminology. The second is a long-overdue solution to the "Indian" problem. These peoples aren't Indians, of course. Nor are they Native Americans, since most live outside the US and anyone born there is "native." They are quite simply the nations who got here first, before modern Old World peoples arrived.
Terms like these make English more descriptive, and so can hardly be called Newspeak. Compare politically-correct desecrations like "firefighter" (when used to mean "fireman") or "person of colour." The first properly refers to an individual who fights forest fires, an entirely different profession from extinguishing structural blazes, which is the province of firemen. Generalising "firefighter" to cover both weakens English and makes it difficult for speakers to think distinctly. "Person of colour" is fuzzy, awkward, and supplies no outstanding need. (Ironically, this is in fact a 19th century euphemism for the "N" word.) In sum, it's thoroughbred Newspeak, subtracting from, rather than contributing to, the English language.
Put up or shut up
Young Calvin, the too-bright-for-his-own-good protagonist of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, once pondered the techniques that people use to speak without actually saying anything, and concluded: "Maybe someday we can make language a total barrier to communication." As for me, I say the only good neologism is a generous neologism. New terms that strengthen and enrich a language are welcome. Those that weaken or muddle it, regardless of the political interests pushing them, are not.
This article available from Suite 101 World Languages: http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/world_languages