# Newspeak Vocabulary and Grammar Research
## From George Orwell's *1984*

---

## CORE NEWSPEAK LEXICON (Authentic Terms from the Novel)

### A Vocabulary (Everyday Life)
The A vocabulary consists of words for daily activities - eating, drinking, working, cooking. These are mostly English words but with:
- Extremely small number compared to English
- Far more rigidly defined meanings
- All ambiguities and shades of meaning purged

### B Vocabulary (Political Terms - Compound Words)
Deliberately constructed for political purposes to impose mental attitudes:

**Core Political Terms:**
- **Ingsoc** - English Socialism (the Party's ideology)
- **goodthink** - orthodox thought, political correctness as defined by Party
- **crimethink** / **thoughtcrime** - thoughts against Ingsoc (liberty, equality, privacy)
- **doublethink** - simultaneously believing two contradictory ideas
- **oldthink** - ideas from before the revolution (objectivity, rationalism)
- **blackwhite** - accepting whatever the Party says regardless of facts
- **bellyfeel** - blind, enthusiastic acceptance of an idea
- **duckspeak** - automatic vocal support without thought (can be praise or abuse)
- **crimestop** - stopping unorthodox thoughts before they form

**Ministry Abbreviations (Minitrue Pattern):**
- **Minitrue** - Ministry of Truth (propaganda, lies, historical records)
- **Minipax** - Ministry of Peace (wages war)
- **Miniplenty** - Ministry of Plenty (economic hardship, rationing)
- **Miniluv** - Ministry of Love (secret police, torture)

**Department Abbreviations:**
- **Recdep** - Records Department
- **Ficdep** - Fiction Department
- **Teledep** - Teleprogrammes Department
- **Pornosec** - Pornography Section

**Crime and Control Terms:**
- **thoughtcrime** - holding unorthodox thoughts
- **facecrime** - facial expression revealing thoughtcrime
- **sexcrime** - any sex not for Party-approved procreation
- **thinkpol** - Thought Police
- **unperson** - person whose existence is erased from history
- **ownlife** - antisocial tendency to enjoy solitude/individualism

**Social Control Terms:**
- **goodsex** - intercourse only for procreation, no pleasure for women, within marriage only
- **prolefeed** - popular culture for entertaining the working class (proles)
- **joycamp** - forced labor camp (euphemism)
- **rectify** - euphemism for distorting historical records
- **malquoted** - inaccurate representation of Big Brother's words
- **malreported** - incorrectly reported information

**Technology and Administration:**
- **speakwrite** - machine that transcribes speech to text
- **telescreen** - two-way television for surveillance
- **artsem** - artificial insemination
- **dayorder** - order of the day
- **upsub** - upward submission to higher authority
- **bb** - Big Brother

**Other B Vocabulary:**
- **Oldspeak** - Standard English
- **ref** - to refer
- **sec** - sector
- **dep** - department

### C Vocabulary (Scientific/Technical)
Scientific and technical terms with rigidly defined meanings. Distribution limited - Party doesn't want citizens knowing too many techniques. The word "science" itself has no Newspeak equivalent.

---

## NEWSPEAK GRAMMATICAL RULES

### Core Principles

1. **Complete Interchangeability of Parts of Speech**
   - Any word can function as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb
   - Example: "think" serves as both noun and verb (eliminates "thought")
   - "knife" replaces both "knife" (noun) and "cut" (verb)

2. **Extreme Regularity**
   - All irregular forms eliminated
   - Preterite and past participle identical, ending in -ed
   - All plurals formed with -s or -es
   - Comparatives always use -er, -est (never "more/most")

### Prefixes

**un-** (negation)
- Replaces all antonyms
- Examples: ungood (bad), uncold (warm/hot), unlight (dark)
- With verbs: negative imperative (unproceed = "do not proceed")
- unperson = person who officially never existed

**plus-** (intensifier = "very")
- plusgood = very good, great
- pluscold = very cold
- plusungood = very bad

**doubleplus-** (superlative intensifier = "extremely")
- doubleplusgood = excellent, fantastic, fabulous
- doublepluscold = extremely cold
- doubleplusungood = terrible, horrible

**ante-** (before)
- antefiling = before filing

**post-** (after)

**up-** and **down-** (directional/hierarchical)
- Can be literal or figurative
- upsub = submitting to higher authority

**good-** and **crime-** (ideological correctness)
- goodthink = orthodox thought
- crimethink = heretical thought

**old-** (derogatory reference to pre-Ingsoc times)
- Oldspeak = Standard English
- oldthink = pre-revolutionary ideas

**mal-** (treasonous inaccuracy)
- malquoted = misquoted (contradicting Party)
- malreported = incorrectly reported

### Suffixes

**-ful** (forms adjectives)
- speedful = fast, quick, rapid
- unspeedful = slow
- goodthinkful = orthodox in thought
- Replaces all adjectives not already ending in -ful

**-wise** (forms adverbs)
- speedwise = quickly
- unspeedwise = slowly
- carewise = carefully
- goodthinkwise = in an orthodox manner
- fullwise = fully, completely, totally
- goodwise = well
- Replaces all adverbs not already ending in -wise

**-ed** (past tense and past participle - always identical)
- runned (ran)
- stealed (stole)
- thinked (thought)
- drived (drove)
- drinked (drank)
- goodthinked

**-ing** (present participle)
- goodthinking = actively practicing goodthink

**-er** (comparative AND agent noun)
- As comparative: gooder (better), badder (worse)
- As agent: goodthinker (one who practices goodthink)

**-est** (superlative)
- goodest (best)
- baddest (worst)

**-s/-es** (plural - completely regular)
- mans (men)
- oxes (oxen)
- lifes (lives)

### Example Transformations

**Oldspeak → Newspeak:**
- "He ran extremely quickly" → "He runned doubleplusspeedwise"
- "That's very bad" → "That's plusungood"
- "She's the best" → "She's goodest"
- "They thought carefully" → "They thinked carewise"

---

## WORD FORMATION PATTERNS

### Intensity Modification System
```
Base: good
Negative: ungood (bad)
Intensified positive: plusgood (very good)
Super-intensified positive: doubleplusgood (excellent)
Intensified negative: plusungood (very bad)
Super-intensified negative: doubleplusungood (terrible)
```

### Compound Word Construction (B Vocabulary)
- Two or more words/word portions welded together
- Always easily pronounceable
- Always functions as noun-verb
- Examples:
  - goodthink (orthodoxy / to think orthodoxically)
  - crimethink (thoughtcrime / to think heretically)
  - bellyfeel (instinctive acceptance / to accept instinctively)
  - duckspeak (mindless speech / to speak mindlessly)

### Ministry/Department Abbreviation Pattern
```
Ministry/Department + Function = Mini/Dep + Function
Ministry of Truth → Minitrue
Records Department → Recdep
Fiction Department → Ficdep
```

---

## UI/SOFTWARE TRANSLATION CONTEXTS

### Error/Status Messages
**Positive States:**
- goodwise (well, successfully)
- plusgood (very good, great)
- doubleplusgood (excellent, perfect)
- speedful (fast, quick)

**Negative States:**
- ungood (bad, error)
- plusungood (very bad, critical error)
- doubleplusungood (catastrophic failure)
- unspeedful (slow, delayed)

**Process States:**
- goodthinking (processing correctly)
- rectify (correcting, fixing - though euphemistic in novel)
- upsub (submitting to server/authority)

### Administrative Terms
- **Minitrue pattern for departments:**
  - Miniadmin (Administration)
  - Minitech (Technical Department)
  - Minisec (Security)
  - Minidata (Data Management)

- **Department abbreviations:**
  - Userdep (User Department)
  - Sysdep (System Department)
  - Netdep (Network Department)

### Actions/Commands
**Affirmative:**
- proceed (continue)
- upsub (submit, upload)
- ref (reference, link)
- goodthink (approve, validate)

**Negative:**
- unproceed (stop, cancel)
- unrectify (undo changes)
- unref (unlink, dereference)

### Navigation
- ante (previous, back)
- post (next, forward)
- up (parent, higher level)
- down (child, lower level)

---

## AUTHENTIC VOCABULARY FROM APPENDIX

### Terms Mentioned in Orwell's Appendix:
- **rapidfiring** - rapid speech
- **dimflicker** - (meaning unclear from context)
- **vapour** - to vaporize (kill and erase from history)
- **submit** - (retained from English)
- **expedite** - (retained from English)
- **ingimp** - (meaning unclear)
- **enfran** - (meaning unclear)
- **deplicate** - (meaning unclear)
- **beautiful** - (retained but meaning restricted)
- **cutegood** - (alternative for beautiful)
- **truetrue** - (emphatic truth)

### Irregular Words Retained:
- Pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, they)
- Relatives (who, which, that - but "whom" eliminated)
- Demonstratives (this, that, these, those)
- Auxiliaries (be, have, do, will, would - but "shall/should" eliminated)

---

## KEY PRINCIPLES FROM THE APPENDIX

### Purpose of Newspeak:
1. Provide expression for Ingsoc worldview
2. Make all other modes of thought impossible
3. Limit ability to articulate abstract concepts
4. Prevent heretical thought by eliminating necessary words

### Vocabulary Reduction Strategy:
- Vocabulary grows SMALLER each year (opposite of natural languages)
- Each reduction considered a gain
- Smaller choice = less temptation to think
- Goal: speech from larynx without involving higher brain

### Euphony (Pleasant Sound):
- Outweighed every consideration except exactitude
- Words must be easily pronounceable
- Short, clipped words preferred
- Staccato, monotonous delivery encouraged
- 2-3 syllables typical for B vocabulary
- Stress distributed equally between first and last syllable

### Translation Impossibility:
- Pre-1960 literature cannot be translated to Newspeak
- Only technical processes or simple actions translatable
- Complex ideas must be "ideologically translated" (meaning changed)
- Example: Declaration of Independence → single word "crimethink"

---

## NOTES ON AUTHENTICITY

**Confirmed from Novel:**
All terms in the B Vocabulary section above appear in the novel or its appendix.

**Grammatical Rules:**
All prefix/suffix rules are explicitly described in "The Principles of Newspeak" appendix.

**Extrapolated Terms:**
Any UI-specific applications (Miniadmin, Minitech, etc.) follow authentic Newspeak rules but are not in the original text.

**Sources:**
- George Orwell, *Nineteen Eighty-Four* (1949)
- "The Principles of Newspeak" (Appendix to novel)
- Wikipedia article on Newspeak (verified against primary source)
- Wiktionary Appendix: Nineteen Eighty-Four

---

## LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY

### Sapir-Whorf Influence:
Newspeak embodies linguistic determinism - the idea that language limits and shapes thought. If words don't exist, concepts become unthinkable.

### Political Function:
- Abbreviations narrow meaning and control associations
- "Communist International" → "Comintern" (reduces emotional/ideological associations)
- "Ministry of Truth" → "Minitrue" (fewer, more controllable associations)

### Cognitive Control:
- Eliminate words = eliminate concepts
- "free" exists only as "free from lice" (absence)
- "free" cannot mean "politically free" (concept abolished)
- "equal" means only "same quantity" not "equal rights" (concept abolished)

---

## UI APPLICATION EXAMPLES

### Login Screen:
- "Upsub credentials" (Submit credentials)
- "Goodthink authentication" (Successful authentication)
- "Ungood password" (Incorrect password)
- "Plusungood: unperson detected" (Critical error: user not found)

### File Operations:
- "Rectify document" (Edit document)
- "Upsub to Minidata" (Upload to database)
- "Ref to anteversion" (Link to previous version)
- "Unproceed changes" (Cancel changes)

### Status Messages:
- "Processing speedwise" (Processing quickly)
- "Doubleplusgood completion" (Excellent, completed successfully)
- "Plusungood: unspeedful response" (Very bad: slow response)
- "Goodthinking..." (Processing correctly...)

### Navigation:
- "Ante page" (Previous page)
- "Post page" (Next page)
- "Up to Miniadmin" (Up to Administration)
- "Down to Userdep" (Down to User Department)

---

*Research compiled from primary source (Orwell's 1984 and appendix) and verified secondary sources. All authentic Newspeak terms documented. Grammatical rules extracted from "The Principles of Newspeak" appendix.*
