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Newspeak
Newspeak is the language of Oceania, a fictional totalitarian state and the setting of the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell. To meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism (Ingsoc) in Oceania, the ruling Party created Newspeak, a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, meant to limit the freedom of thought—personal identity, self-expression, free will—that threatens the ideology of the régime of Big Brother and the Party, who have criminalized such concepts into thoughtcrime, as contradictions of Ingsoc orthodoxy. In "The Principles of Newspeak", the appendix to the novel, George Orwell explains that Newspeak usage follows most of the English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning. Linguistically, the contractions of Newspeak—Ingsoc (English Socialism), Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), etc.—derive from the syllabic abbreviations of Russian, which identify the government and social institutions of the Soviet Union, such as politburo (Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Comintern (Communist International), kolkhoz (collective farm), and Komsomol (Young Communists' League). The long-term political purpose of the new language is for every member of the Party and society, except the Proles—the working-class of Oceania—to exclusively communicate in Newspeak, by A.D. 2050; during that 66-year transition, the usage of Oldspeak (Standard English) shall remain interspersed among Newspeak conversations. Newspeak is also a constructed language, of planned phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, like Basic English, which Orwell promoted (1942–44) during the Second World War (1939–45), and later rejected in the essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946), wherein he criticizes the bad usage of English in his day: dying metaphors, pretentious diction, and high-flown rhetoric, which produce the meaningless words of doublespeak, the product of unclear reasoning. Orwell's conclusion thematically reiterates linguistic decline: "I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this may argue that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development, by any direct tinkering with words or constructions."
  • 2.9K
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Neo (Constructed Language)
Neo is a constructed international auxiliary language created by Arturo Alfandari, a Belgian diplomat of Italian descent. The language combines features of Esperanto, Ido, Novial and Volapük. The root base of the language and grammar (in contrast to that of Esperanto and Ido) are closely related to that of the French language, with some English influences.
  • 627
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Na'vi Language
The Naʼvi language (Naʼvi: Lìʼfya leNaʼvi) is the constructed language of the Naʼvi, the sapient humanoid indigenous inhabitants of the fictional moon Pandora in the 2009 film Avatar. It was created by Paul Frommer, a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business with a doctorate in linguistics. Naʼvi was designed to fit James Cameron's conception of what the language should sound like in the film, to be realistically learnable by the fictional human characters of the film, and to be pronounceable by the actors, but to not closely resemble any single human language. When the film was released in 2009, Naʼvi had a growing vocabulary of about a thousand words, but understanding of its grammar was limited to the language's creator. However, this has changed subsequently as Frommer has expanded the lexicon to more than 2900 words and has published the grammar, thus making Naʼvi a relatively complete, learnable and serviceable language.
  • 794
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Multilingual Pedagogies in Norwegian Schools
Teachers in Norway have been increasingly faced with the challenge of adapting their instruction methods to address the needs of minority-language students. It seems to indicate that multilingual practices are being introduced in Norwegian classrooms. However, they often rely on majority languages, such as English and Norwegian. Some teachers have been found to employ minority languages to support learners’ English writing in drafts. Minority languages in Norwegian schools tend to be regarded as less valuable than Norwegian and English.
  • 842
  • 29 Jun 2022
Topic Review
MOGUL Framework
The MOGUL framework is a research framework aiming to provide a theoretical perspective on the nature of language. MOGUL (Modular On-line Growth and Use of Language) draws on the common ground underlying various related areas of cognitive science including psycholinguistics, theoretical linguistics, first- and second-language acquisition, neurolinguistics and cognitive psychology; it is designed to be applicable to all these fields of research. The MOGUL framework's background assumption is that the mind is composed of expert systems which have evolved over time, one of which is responsible for human linguistic ability. Historically, scientific studies of language have been divided between many sub-disciplines; theoretical linguists focus on the abstract properties of language and researchers in other fields investigate how language is used and processed in real time: either in psychological terms or (in the case of neurolinguistics) through a study of the physical systems of neurons in the brain. Each field of study has developed its own research traditions and technical vocabulary, making it difficult to integrate insights across disciplines. The MOGUL Framework represents an attempt to identify common themes and compatible approaches in different (but related fields), and hence to facilitate integration.
  • 735
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Min Chinese
Min (simplified Chinese: 闽语; traditional Chinese: 閩語; pinyin: Mǐn yǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân gú; BUC: Mìng ngṳ̄) is a broad group of Sinitic languages spoken by about 30 million people in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaoshan, parts of Zhongshan, three counties in southern Wenzhou, Zhoushan archipelago, and Taiwan. The name is derived from the Min River in Fujian, which is also the abbreviated name of Fujian Province. Min varieties are not mutually intelligible with each other or with any other variety of Chinese. There are many Min speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The most widely spoken variety of Min outside Fujian is Southern Min (Min Nan), also known as Hokkien-Taiwanese (which includes Taiwanese and Amoy). Many Min languages have retained notable features of the Old Chinese language, and there is linguistic evidence that not all Min varieties are directly descended from Middle Chinese of the Sui–Tang dynasties. Min languages are believed to have a significant linguistic substrate from the languages of the inhabitants of the region prior to its sinicization.
  • 1.1K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Middle Mongol Language
Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian was a Mongolic koiné language spoken in the Mongol Empire. Originating from Genghis Khan's home region of northeastern Mongolia, it diversified into several Mongolic languages after the collapse of the empire. In comparison to Modern Mongolian, it is known to have had no long vowels, different vowel harmony and verbal systems and a slightly different case system.
  • 1.1K
  • 03 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Masurian Dialect
The Masurian ethnolect (Masurian: mazurská gádkä; Polish: Mazurski; German: Masurisch), according to some linguists, is a dialect group of the Polish language; others consider Masurian to be a separate language, spoken by the Masurian peoples in northeastern Poland .
  • 721
  • 06 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Malayan Languages
The Malay or Malayan languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by Malays and related peoples across Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand and the far southern parts of the Philippines. They have traditionally been classified as Malay, Para-Malay, and Aboriginal Malay, but this reflects geography and ethnicity rather than a proper linguistic classification. The Malayan languages are mutually intelligible to varying extents, though the distinction between language and dialect is unclear in many cases. Para-Malay includes the Malayan languages of Sumatra. They are: Minangkabau, Central Malay (Bengkulu), Pekal, Musi (Palembang), Negeri Sembilan (Malaysia), and Duano’. Aboriginal Malay are the Malayan languages spoken by the Orang Asli (Proto-Malay) in Malaya. They are Jakun, Orang Kanaq, Orang Seletar, and Temuan. The other Malayan languages, included in neither of these groups, are associated with the expansion of the Malays across the archipelago. They include Malaccan Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Kedah Malay, Kedayan/Brunei Malay, Berau Malay, Bangka Malay, Jambi Malay, Kutai Malay, Loncong, Pattani Malay, and Banjarese. There are also several Malay-based creole languages, such as Betawi, Cocos Malay, Manado Malay and Sabah Malay, which may be more or less distinct from standard (Malaccan) Malay.
  • 2.2K
  • 13 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Linguistics in Science Fiction
Linguistics has an intrinsic connection to Science Fiction stories given the nature of science fiction. As mentioned in Aliens and Linguists: Language Study and Science Fiction by Walter E. Meyers, science fiction is almost always concerned with the idea of communication, such as communication with aliens and machines, or communication using dead languages and evolved languages of the future. Authors of science fiction at times use Linguistics and Linguistic theories as a tool for storytelling, although technical terms are rarely used with authors only going into as much detail as the reader will understand. While Linguistics can be found to be employed by writers of science fiction, it must be noted that not all uses are accurate to actual Linguistics and Linguistic Theories. Nevertheless, there still exists the lingering presence and use of Linguistics (even if inaccurate) in such cases. As mentioned by Walter E. Meyers, the ability to make a story seem more unfamiliar and exotic, and an alien seem less of a costumed human who merely differs in physical appearance, is only possible through the use of language. It is this ability that appears to draw the boundary between great works of science fiction and those lesser so. As such, Linguistics, the scientific study of language, comes to hold an important role in the genre of science fiction.
  • 941
  • 10 Nov 2022
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