Language as the “Ultimate Weapon” in Nineteen Eighty-Four
We all know that language both written and spoken is one of the greatest advances of mankind, and so it is a power that should be used correctly. In the novel of 1984, we see a clear example of this, within the book we se that the language spoken in it, “Newspeak,” is controlled by the tyrannical government shown in the book. Sometimes words get forgotten, but other times, they are stolen. In this case newspeak had fewer and fewer words that could be used to start a revolution and to keep things going exactly the way their tyrannical government wanted them to. By shortening the words in newspeak, it narrows the way people think and reduces their memory capacity, so now the government has all the power and instead of thinking, people dedicate their time to other things while the government keeps shortening the language and reducing their memory. By reducing the memory of their citizens, the country is able to stay on its tracks, while people forget everything that has happened befor
