• Sarah@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    Newspeak: “In the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to reduce a person’s ability to think critically.”

    See also: “the officer’s gun discharged” instead of “police shot the man”

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      24 days ago

      I remember thinking this aspect of the book was far fetched, but holy shit was he spot on. Language really does inform how we think, and controlling that can be very powerful