Proles and Newspeak

[MetalWingedWolf]

The evolution of 1984

Ok, think in the book to when Syme spoke so grandly of newspeak, and how it would soon be the only language the party knew and that the old language would only be left to the proles. Now out of curiousity I wonder what kind of challenges that would bring the party should they want to involve the prole at all. With the two sides speaking different languages what would you predict the party would do to bridge communication between them? 85% of the population of Oceania might want to know what you're talking about when you start hate week or any other nation wide event.

[Ryan333]

The proles do not really associate with the Party really at all and so the language barrier would not really cause a vast effect at all.

[MetalWingedWolf]

You misunderstand or shy the power of 85% too soon, Winston writes that if there is hope it lies in the proles, with the party crippled from knowing what proles speak, and the proles immune to propaganda techniques bringing them in support and ignorant of the government. So I'm asking, what would the party do to fix it, and if nothing were done do you think the chance of rebellion would be greater, and by being the higher power of government, they'd gladly intervene to remain in place, so assume this and describe your thoughts on it

[Molko]

Orwell ends the book in such a negative and despondent tone... Although Winston points out if there is hope it lies with the Proles, Orwell hints that the Proles are ignorant to the corruption and oppression of the Party. The proles have no need to rebel against the party as the Party have nothing to do with them... the proles are free to do whatever they want, unlike Party members.

But let's take your theoretical situation... I'm sure if the Party wanted to include the Proles under their belt they would do it tactically and do it well before newspeak took over as an official language. Although you pointed out that the Proles are immune to propaganda, we cannot automatically assume that this would be the case. The party could very well bomb airstrip one for their own political reasons and blame it one eastasia or eurasia... they could gather the proles together that way and tell them that they need to join in order to safeguard their country... just a thought though...

btw, if the above does not make any sense then I appologise... it's just too hot right now to think coherently *melts*

[The Unnamable]

Winston writes that if there is hope it lies in the proles,

But he also adds:
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

So there is no hope.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever." chapter 3

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Interestingly (at least I think so) there was a similar situation in Greece until very recently.

All court & parliamentary proceedings, official & legal documents and the more respected newspapers, were in Katherevousa - literally "pure-speech". This was an artificially "cleansed" form of the Greek language, based on ancient Greek sentence structure, and with regional variations and dialect expressions removed. This was created in the 19th century by nationalist intellectuals in an attempt to "clean up" the language.

The ordinary people spoke and wrote in Demotic (literally "common" or "popular") Greek. The tabloid newspapers were written in this form of the language.

It was the mark of an intellectual that they could read and converse in katherevousa. The average "Greek in the street" had great difficulty in understanding legal texts, acts of parliament and filling in official forms - obviously great news to the Greek lawyers! The situation was similar to the way that Latin was the "intellectual" language in much of Europe a few centuries ago.

This language duality wasn't scrapped until 1976, when demotic Greek became the official language. But (and I think I'm correct here) the last katherevousa newspaper didn't go demotic until the 1990s.

Not really relevant to an understanding of Orwell - but it shows that yet another of his ideas wasn't as far from the truth as it may seem. Although katherevousa is, unlike newspeak, more complex than the common tongue.

I hope you found that muchplusgood.

[mangamagna]

remember there were devices that translated speech into writing, so there couldve been a device that would be created for the purpose of translating newspeak to oldspeak. also, members of the inner party knew many things, they, like o'brien, knew all the truth, including oldspeak very well, so they couldve simply broadcast the information themselves, after all it was allright for them to know new and oldspeak in 2050 since they tightly held on to the idea of doublethink and therefore knowing oldspeak wouldnt of had any adverse effects on them.