Newspeak

I recently read George Orwell's 1984 for the first time on a friend's recommendation. One of the most interesting aspects of the book was Newspeak, the new version of the English language devised by the totalitarian government.

It was so important to Orwell's vision of terrible future that he added an appendix to the book to explain the concepts and purposes of the language. Newspeak was intended to restrict the range of verbal expression and thought - to actually make some things unutterable and therefore unthinkable. This was done by eliminating entire words from the language and eliminating all of the undesirable definitions of the remaining words. The creators of Newspeak worked hard to make sure that the language was a small one with a high degree of precision. If there were no words to express an idea contrary to the government's doctrines, the ideas would fade away or not occur at all. This was one of the government's chief methods of maintaining control.

At first I thought, Orwell given too much power to language, but then I realized that language is something people and organizations throughout time and the world attempt to control. Books have been burned in hopes that their ideas will go up in smoke as well. The political left and right (and all sorts of other types of organizations) attempt to define and redefine words on a constant basis to fit their uses. New words are constantly being added while other ones are being marked as undesirable while still more are having definitions removed or changed entirely.

Then it got me thinking about Newspeak as it relates to recent technology.

Consider computer programming. As a software engineer, I'm constantly trying to control the actions of a computer using a language designed for just that. These languages come with an extremely small amount of words - words that don't correspond to desirable actions have been eliminated. We want the words to be narrowly defined so there won't be any ambiguity and the computer will know exactly what to do.

Consider newer technologies aimed at enabling communication between people. Twitter limits you 140 characters for a single thought. Facebook begs you to give a short status message to tell the world about you at that moment. Texting has changed the face of language by changing the spelling of words and emphasizing short, precise words.

I've begun to be a little nervous that Newspeak is being brought about unwittingly and voluntarily by the creators and consumers of our latest technology.