{"id":4910,"date":"2003-12-17T00:27:07","date_gmt":"2003-12-17T08:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/blog\/2003\/12\/17\/4910\/"},"modified":"2003-12-17T00:27:07","modified_gmt":"2003-12-17T08:27:07","slug":"newspeak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/?p=4910","title":{"rendered":"Newspeak"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was just rereading Orwell’s appendix to 1984<\/a>, “The Principles of Newspeak,” written in 1948. My daydream was something like “you know what would be cool? To reprint 1984 in Newspeak<\/b>, and print it on the crappiest pulp paper possible.” The copy of the book would be like an artifact from the world of IngSoc. <\/p>\n

\nWithout even going into how this relates to the current global political situation, I was thinking: Japanese already has a lot in common with Newspeak. There are contracted compound words all over the place- “Pokemon<\/i>” is “pocket monster”, “karaoke<\/i>” is “kara<\/i> (empty) orchestra”- compare this with Miniluv<\/i> for the Ministry of Love and even the short phrase “thought crime” (thinking something treasonous or even different) is actually rendered “crimethink<\/i>.”<\/p>\n

\n

Also, it is next to impossible to express certain ideas in both languages. For example, directly contradicting someone in Japanese (without getting in a slapping fight), is very tricky- the acceptible way to express a differing opinion can be as subtle as agreeing with the other person in a nonenthusiastic way. <\/p>\n

\n

SPEAKER A: Kirby’s plan is brilliant!
\nSPEAKER B: I don’t think so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nis pretty rude, while<\/p>\n

\n

SPEAKER A: Kirby’s plan is (probably) a good one.
\nSPEAKER B: It’s good, isn’t it? (with non enthusiastic tone)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nis considered acceptible, yet still communicates dissent! That would never<\/b> work in English!<\/p>\n

\n

This is not to be confused with sarcasm, which native Japanese speakers have a lot of trouble understanding. Compare this with Newspeak, which has condensed so many words nonessential to IngSoc that the Declaration of Independence becomes only the word “crimethink.”<\/p>\n

\nSo… back to my reprint idea- this might be very difficult for a number of reasons… <\/p>\n

\nFirstly, you would have to figure out the Newspeak equivalents for every word in the novel, and unlike J R R Tolkien, Orwell did not leave us elaborate notes and dictionaries, just a final word count of the dictionary. Every word in Newspeak can be used as a noun, adjective, verb, and with suffixes, a variety of adverbs… but the translator would have to decide which synonyms “made it” and which ones were culled. Example- “Humid” and “Sultry”- would either of these make it into Newspeak? Definitely not both, since they are similar. In 1984, refining the Newspeak dictionary is a full-time job for an entire branch of the government.<\/p>\n

\nSecondly, Newspeak’s nature would make this task nearly impossible- since one of the primary goals of Newspeak is to limit communication, such that it is impossible to express anything outside of the condoned lifestyle of IngSoc… and the novel 1984 is about the traitorous Winston and Julia and their forbidden selfish love and forbidden sense of individualism… the translator would have to describe the action and the emotions without using most of the words Orwell actually DID use because he had the luxury of writing in OldSpeak.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was just rereading Orwell’s appendix to 1984, “The Principles of Newspeak,” written in 1948. My daydream was something like “you know what would be cool? To reprint 1984 in Newspeak, and print it on the crappiest pulp paper possible.” The copy of the book would be like an artifact from the world of IngSoc. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-looky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}