Anyone who’s studied the George Orwell novel 1984 want to explain to me what the fucking point of “newspeak” is and why it’s not a strawman “we’re gonna make the commies seem like supervillains and do random stupid shit for no reason” type trope? Because when has any prominent figure in socialism or communism ever suggested dumbing down language? Give me an example of a commie language reinvention please, 1984 is supposed to be the definitive manual on what happened under communism isn’t it?

Also detecting a hint of racism in that plotpoint because there really are real languages that evolved naturally where the positive and negative expressions are indeed structured as good, not good, very good, very not good, etc. Is it trying to say that people speaking those languages are bad at expressing their thoughts because it’s not how English does it?

Actually, Chinese is kind of like this with its use of pre/suffixes. Chinese is also one of the best languages for poetry and literature. Source: Native Mandarin speaker.

Crossposted from my Mastodon

  • @CannotSleep420
    12•1 year ago

    Give me an example of a commie language reinvention please… Actually, Chinese is kind of like this with its use of pre/suffixes. Chinese is also one of the best languages for poetry and literature. Source: Native Mandarin speaker.

    Didn’t the CPC simplify the Chinese characters so that they’re easier to write and learn? Although I’m not sure if Orwell was alive at the time that happened or if that change is really comparable to what IngSoc did. Either way, if burgerland is proof of anything, dumbing down the people is a lot easier than dumbing down the language.