Yet another real-life Newspeak equivalent?

[PetrKL]

You guys who have read 1984 remember how the entire point of Newspeak was to eliminate the possibility of even thinking in terms of real freedom?

 

I also remember that when Stef was talking about the leftist coalition in Greece he mentioned that Greek doesn't even have its equivalent of the word "libertarian".

Why am I mentioning this - I was just listening to the show 2932, and when I heard the quote "Because you don't listen!" I realized something I think is really startling. My mother tongue (Czech) has the exact same expression for "listen" as well as for "obey". And I suddenly remembered how frustrating it was in the past when I was naive enough to try to change other people's minds about certain topics. Whenever I would say to someone "Why aren't you listening to what I'm saying?" I would often get a response like "Because I'm not your dog to obey your commands!" .. and it made me wonder - what would it possibly take for the majority of Czechs to even start thinking in terms of free cooperation, when the language we are being taught since we're toddlers is unclear on whether you want people to merely pay attention to the information you're giving them, or you're commanding them to obey you?

 

It almost feels like the "wizards" who rule through language inflicted this curse on us that prevents us from telling the difference between what's voluntary and what is not...

What do you guys think about this? I believe there are a lot of non-native English speakers here, so I'm interested if you can think of any other examples like this in your native tongues that keep people in the fog?

[Wuzzums]

My mother tongue is romanian and there's also no equivalent of "libertarian" in it. English is a very versatile language, I find it very difficult to express myself without resorting to it. I owe a lot of what I am and know to the simple fact that I can speak english. The amount of information out there that's available to an english speaking person is staggering. When I argue with people I find them to be very dense, they usually dismiss what I say as something I made but whenever I direct them to a source they ask me if there's a romanian version to it. There's usually not, therefore all they have to go on is my word.

 

I get into debates about economics and mention capitalism only to realize that they don't understand what capitalism means. I get into a discussion about philosophy only to find out they don't know what objectivism is. I get into a conversation about the free market only to see they have no idea what the "free market" is. Honestly, my father owns several businesses and he's relatively competent and he believes that the "free market" is a term I coined. Or "fiat currency", there's no romanian translation to that. Stuff gets crazier when I have to explain to psychology graduates terms like "mirroring", "projecting", or "psychopathy", and this is all because there's either no direct translation of these terms or the direct translation has a different colloquial meaning.

 

 

Also I've noticed a very powerful trend in my own life and outside. There's a direct correlation between blind patriotism (redundancy, I know) and being able to only speak the mother tongue. The people I know that aren't fluent in any other language have a very strong sense of themselves as being part of the nation and they even sometimes define their values as "romanian values". They put the country's interest above the people's interest (I have no idea what that means too but it's something I heard them say). This is all in contrast to the english speaking folk I know that find the idea of a romanian patriot to be ludicrous. To them the concept of patriotism is just something that shows up in movies, like elves and warlocks.

 

People's identity is closely related to their mother tongue, or the tongue their inner voice speaks in. If you can tie that language to a specific geographical area then you won't ever need fences to keep the livestock in.

[AncapFTW]

I find it interesting how much language can limit our ability to understand concepts.  You may have to resort to adding English words to your language, the way Japanese now has a large number of words derived from other languages, especially English.  English has adopted many languages from other languages as well.

[SWMA]

This is a topic that I find very interesting myself, if you had not made a thread about it I would have now

 

Are you guys interested in starting something of a list of words that are not, or not in the same way, in your mother tongue and in english?
I think such a thing could help get a deeper understanding of the concepts involved.

 

An example from German that I posted in another thread already: the english word "force"

In German you could translate it with three words, "Gewalt", "Zwang" and "Kraft", which are all related but slightly different.

• Gewalt which is literally force from the state "the power of the state", can also be "violence", it is the direct encroachment of someone on your person with physical force. Staatsgewalt(literally force from the state or power of the state) is what you would use to describe policemen, since they are what brings physical force to the entity of the state.
• Kraft is related to "being strong", but mainly used in physics as "the force on an electron from an electromagnetic field" for example. But you would never use the word when someone is for example hurting someone else (other than to describe if it's being done by someone strong).
• Zwang is something that is exerted on someone or something which "forces" said someone/thing into a certain action or path. For example if the bowling ball rolls into the gutter, the gutter "forces" the ball to stay in there and it's path into a straight line.

"Gewalt" is the one I feel most adequate for the NAP, the non-aggression principle.

But when describing the state and society "forcing" people to do certain things, "Zwang" is the better word as generally there is no physical force being exerted, there is "only" the threat of it.

And said threat is "Zwang", which can of course become "Gewalt"

 

 

I am looking forward to hear other people's thoughts on this, feel free to add anything.

 

cheers,

SWMA