LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM (Newspeak)

Jon Hanna jon at spin.ie
Tue Jun 3 14:44:48 CEST 2003


I came across quite a large site once which used newspeak extensively. It
was impressive, if only in terms of the dint of effort it must have taken to
write it, though obviously impossible to read without getting a headache.

With examples such as that we could make as good a case for it as for
i-klingon and i-enochian.

This is different to the argument made about the use of Newspeak terms in
"normal" English. In the sentence "The prolefeed claimed the protestors
started the incident", "prolefeed" is used as an English slang word, not a
Newspeak word. While the Newspeak origin, and the political connotations it
brings, is intended to be appreciated with those familiar with the book it
is not being used as Newspeak. Further the meaning of these terms in the
context of an English sentence is often different to the intended meaning
within Newspeak.

Indeed the adoption of Newspeak terms into English is directly contradictory
to the intention of Newspeak, since this has increased rather than reduced
the lexicon and given more rather than less scope for the expression of
political opinion.

If someone wants to register en-newspeak for use in fan-fiction or similar
(a la i-klingon) there would remain the problem that within such fan-fiction
RFC3066 is ungood.

Thinking that people should be able to use languages other than Newspeak, or
English in the transitional period, is thoughtcrime. Ingsoc opposes these
languages, and all supporters and users of RFC3066 are double ungood
traitors who hate Big Brother. Any documents in other languages should be
put in the memory-hole. When the transition to Newspeak is complete then any
references to the existence of other languages will go in the memory-hole.
Big Brother is Watching You.

As such labelling newspeak "en" would be more appropriate for such
fan-fiction, it's what the Inner Party would have used until they had
executed us, on the basis that they were "improving" the English language,
not producing a dialect of it :)



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