Preamble: I was discussing the ability of a political power to affect language with a few friends (over burgers and beers, of course; because we had tired of talking about The Dark Knight, which we’d just watched). I had written a last-minute essay for an undergrad sociolinguistics course on the topic, but couldn’t recall my arguments very clearly. As such, I made a number of faulty and unconvincing arguments in an attempt to support my position that political power alone cannot abolish or enforce a language.
On coming home, I found the essay and read it over. I’ll admit, its conclusions are not earth-shattering—basically “it’s complicated”—or inarguable, but it was enough to spark and fuel some pretty interesting discussion. So, I’ve reproduced it here. If you agree or disagree, take offense or whatever, feel free to post a comment. Please keep in mind that I’m no historical linguist or essayist, the citations are patchy, I like commas, the sun was shining in my eyes, etc.
Language and thought control
In his most popular work, 1984, George Orwell introduces the language of Newspeak: “a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [the totalitarian governing power]” that will “make all other modes of thought impossible… literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.” The language is based on English, but with significant changes, including a more regular system reliant on prefixes and affixes, an emphasis on shorter, easily pronounceable words, and a drastic reduction of vocabulary. Orwell seems to think this last feature most important in controlling speakers’ thought, “each reduction [is] a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought.” By shrinking the choice of words and simplifying their construction, Newspeak aims to shift the locus of control over language from the higher brain sectors to the larynx, away from any unorthodox or seditious thought, making them inexpressible. By 2050, Newspeak is to be the one and only spoken language in the lands ruled by Ingsoc.
Despite being a work of fiction, the threat that language can be co-opted or replaced by those in power is considered as real outside of 1984 as in. Mamet insists that “names are powerful,” that “the assignment of nicknames, the application of jargon is an understood tool for the manipulation of behaviour.” Noting the increase of unnatural, government-made terminology in the United States since late 2001—weapons of mass destruction: “overlong, clunky, and obviously confected”—he warns against a shift “from the conscious into the automatic,” worried of a linguistic take-over very much like the one in Orwell’s dystopic England.
Are fears of Newspeak justified?
The fear of political control through language is based on the implicit assumption that “the language spoken by the individual determines the way in which that person thinks”, a concept known as linguistic determinism. If true, this concept, distilled from the work of Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, would certainly be cause for alarm; Newspeak, once adopted fully, would limit thought and expression eternally.
However, linguistic determinism does not stand up to scrutiny. If thoughts were determined by language, how is it that new words come about? How could “nigger” (“nigga”) and “queer,” both potent derogative words, have changed over the past few decades into friendly terms of address or exclamations of pride? In truth, the relationship between language and thought is not unidirectional, but two-way, social reality both shaping and being shaped by its language. “Sociolinguistic conventions have a dual relation to power: on the one hand they incorporate differences of power, on the other hand they arise out of—and give rise to—particular relations of power”.
The examples of “nigger,” “queer,” and “sexist”, are doubly important: they are shifts in language use introduced by minorities, groups deprived of much political influence, often working against established powers. While examples such as these do not eliminate language as an influence on thought (and, indeed, many of the same social causes that gave rise to sexist aim, wrongly or rightly, to reform language and, in doing so, common conceptions of gender), they do diminish it. Constraining language does not necessarily constrain thought, thus fears or fantasies of absolute control and stagnation of ideology by means of language alone are less likely than Mamet or Orwell propose.
Language and empire
Language alone may not determine thought, but it is a vehicle for and a body of ideology, a way of exercising power. Those in positions of control—over nation-states, corporations, armies—as well as many of those over whom they hold sway, act accordingly: idioms are imposed, language changed through coercion, use warped on the fulcrum of political power. Phillipson quotes a Spanish report written for the Queen in 1492 that proposes the use of language as “a tool for conquest abroad,” noting that “language has always been the consort of empire, and forever shall remain its mate”. The difficulty (likely, impossibility) of engineering thought through the manipulation of signifiers (words) may not be overcome, but spreading a whole system of signs—a language—as a means to indoctrinate or undermine another group of people has been attempted time and time again. Could Newspeak ever become the only language in a large empire? Is political power effective in enacting and maintaining a language? Just how great a factor is power in language change?
Japanese occupation
Consider Miyawaki’s study of the harsh Japanese colonial language policies in Taiwan, Korea, Micronesia, and occupied territories in China and in Southeast-Asia during the first half of the twentieth century. These policies were rigid and explicitly aimed at eradicating non-Japanese cultural and linguistic influences, as well as impressing Japanese values on the colonized people. In Taiwan, this began in the mid-1890’s by legally
stating that the fundamental objectives of common school education be the provision of moral education and practical skills to Taiwanese children, thereby cultivating in them attitudes of Japanese nationalism and also leading them to be well versed in ‘Kokugo’ [the national language i.e. Japanese]…
More drastic revisions such as the abolition of the native language (Chinese) teaching and the integration of the educational system and curriculum with those of homeland Japan were made in 1937 and in 1942 respectively.
The intent of such policies was stated more forcefully during the Pacific War. Japan pressed for the use of Japanese not only in schools, but at home; they hoped to “diffuse Japanese, gradually limit the use of European languages and eventually abolish them” in Southeast-Asia, “to stamp out European/American thoughts, and establish an Oriental-minded culture.” Positive assimilation, policies that were to nurture Japanese culture in the colonies, quickly became negative, punitive and brutal. Miyawaki finds that many native-born students under Japanese rule recall being publicly humiliated, sometimes beaten, for speaking any tongue other than Japanese.
Yet, for all the influence and coercion, both positive and negative, exercised by the Japanese colonizers, the proportion of Japanese speakers to non- in the former colonies today is small to none. Miyawaki notes a variety of small linguistic changes, notably borrowing, pidginization, and a bilingual minority, present to this day. These effects, however, are shallower and more localized than what one would have imagined a large, modern empire would be capable of over fifty years. Miyawaki concludes that colonial power is only one among many influences that can affect “language ecology.” Much as with language and thought, the relationship between power and language is less direct than anticipated (in Japanese policies). Although the Japanese policies did alter “the society, culture and psychology of the ruled,” they did not determine it, and did not succeed in imposing a foreign language on a conquered people over the long term.
Linguists urge readers to consider a myriad of factors and constraints that may cause language change. In their introduction to Language and Power, Kramarae, Schulz, and O’Barr present a variety of opinions on how language and power may interrelate, so many different avenues of study and interpretation that they seem to through their hands in the air, claiming that an “adequate understanding… may be several sociolinguistic years away.”
Ancient Akkadian
Ostler gives much weight to the influences outside of direct political control in his historical analysis of language change. He is quick to dismantle J. R. Firth’s assertion that “world powers make world languages,” pointing out that the Germanic rulers of Europe that succeeded the Romans were only a slight influence on the Romance languages still in use to this day, and further, that the Romans themselves were incapable of imposing Latin on their subjects in the east, where Greek remained the common tongue through the hundreds of years of Roman rule. Ostler finds explanations for lasting language change reliant primarily on political power, “based on military conquest or commercial dominance,” lacking; even “total conquest, military and spiritual, is not always enough to effect a language change.”
Ostler gives the example of Akkadian, the primary language of the impressive Assyro-Babylonian empire. Akkadian was “preeminently a language of power and influence,” a literary standard, the single language of an empire lasting almost two thousand years. The influence of the empire helped spread its language, the uptake of the Akkadian in lands outside of Babylonian control carried largely by prestige (and others’ eagerness for the relatively new technology of writing), until it became a well-established lingua franca among the many people and powers of the time. Yet, the language was overwhelmed by Aramaic, a language spoken “mainly by nomads,” a community radically different from, and hostile to, the Babylonians, with “no cultural advantage… highly unlikely to set up a rival civilization.”
Stranger still, this change in language came at the zenith of the empire’s power. Having conquered much of the area after decades of successful war, a policy of separating conquered people was instated, intending to unify the populations by “cutting them off from their traditions” while acculturating them to Assyro-Babylonian culture—importantly, its language. This policy of division and assimilation eventually displaced some 4.5 million people over three centuries, an act of immense power. Unfortunately, this policy did not have the intended effect. It backfired, encouraging the spread of Aramaic and undermining Akkadian as a common language.
Since the Aramaeans were the largest group being scattered in this way, when other western Semites, such as Israelites or Phoenicians, found themselves transplanted, they could tend to find themselves speaking more and more like their new neighbours.
Aramaic quickly became the dominant language, and remained so, during the following centuries of the empire and long after its collapse. Both Assyro-Babylonian and Japanese policies (some 2500 years apart) shared similar goals and failures despite being backed by powerful, long-established cultures and military forces. The triumph of Aramaic over Akkadian is an extreme demonstration of the weakness of political influence on language.
Determined not by power alone
The wealth and might of a political power does not determine the spread and stay of the language it speaks, and may well, as in the case of Aramaic and Akkadian, exist separately from it. Through means insidious, duplicitous, or explicit, political powers may mean to affect language and, through it, how people think. However common the belief that language molds thought, it does not appear to, certainly not the the degree feared by paranoiacs or wished for by propagandists. The influences of language on thought, of power on language, are complicated, two-way, and subject to many other forces. Political power alone cannot guarantee the abolition or spread of a language, nor can it always succeed in altering it.
Lucas really digs human–computer interaction, video games, and writing. He has a master's degree in computer science from UBC and a bachelor's in cognitive science from Queen's. 
