<p>Implement some "levels of trust" in the language: Design phrases or word choices that signal the initiated that you are talking to non-trusted people or that non-trusted people may be listening, design other phrases that signal that you can talk more freely.</p>

<p>I have heard (but I don't have hard references for this) that travellers and gypsies in Europe have such devices in their languages.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-03T09:47:34.227Z
Tying this into the idea of [evidentiality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality), which already exists in natlangs, could be a cool idea as well.
Sparksbet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-31T08:17:21.757Z
2020-03-31T08:17:21.757Z
Sir Cornflakes
<p>Incomprehensive languages on themselves never stopped conquering by brute force; the winner's language being imposed on the conquered people.</p>
<p>Forbidding the local language. Out of respect for many fine people in China, I will not mention China. China itself was under colonial suppression with even Opium, though Chinese is hard to master for an European. The colonial past of the Western countries has similar phenomena. There was also the persecution of Esperanto by dictators like Stalin; a language to <em>contact</em> with the rest of the world. As I thinks your proposed self-isolation may have a contrary weakening effect too.</p>
<p>A (pseudo) secret language like from gypsys, or a (high-level) signal language at least caused a cultural identity. But your argument of &quot;ikh ken dir nisht farshteyn&quot; (I cannot understand you - and you not me), would require a stoicism, like in Gordon R. Dickson's sf universe &quot;Soldiers, Ask Not.&quot;</p>
<p>Without a culture ready to encorporate pride, stoicism, self-sacrifice it would be hard.
Never done with success (native Americans), but alluring as theme in science-fiction.</p>
<p>One scenario: the dictator could oppress his people, and let his secret agents launch a secret revolution language against oppression. <em>That</em> could be feasible.</p>
<p>A further bit of science fiction too: Jack Vance's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Languages_of_Pao" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Languages of Pao</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-18T12:22:41.003Z
2023-05-20T18:29:14.083Z
2023-05-20T18:29:14.083Z
Joop Eggen
<p>The purpose of Newspeak (control) is not achieved by making the language simpler; it is by making it impossible to think certain undesirable things. If the ideology of an invading force is aligned with the ideology of the previous system, then Newspeak would just continue to work fine.</p>
<p>However, if the invaders have an opposing ideology, then the now occupied citizens would presumably not be able to communicate with them at all, as they lack the concepts and means to express the invaders' ideas.</p>
<p>So the complexity of the language is not really related to the issue of control (or non-control), which is achieved by other means.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-10-13T16:49:43.807Z
2022-10-13T16:49:43.807Z
Oliver Mason
<p>Couldn't the dictator just impose a completely new language? If all children were taught this new language at school from a young age, and if all teaching materials and literature they had access to was in that language, they'd eventually forget their parents' tongue. It happens all the time with kids that move to a different country when they're young.</p>
<p>Imposing a new language through the education system would make it easier for the dictator to control access to information and therefore to control the population. At the same time it would create an artificial language barrier with the surrounding nations. Still, it wouldn't be the language itself that makes a population easier or harder to control, only the fact they use a different language.</p>
<p>If you really want a language whose grammar makes it inherently harder to lie and manipulate people, as a thought experiment you could perhaps try to create:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>A language even less expressive than stereotypical caveman speech, where the grammar is so ambiguous it is impossible to understand a sentence outside of its context. Take these words for example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Anger death flower friend.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This could mean many things: It angers me that my friend stepped on the flowers and ruined them / My anger ceased since I was brought flowers by a friend / The death of this person angers me, so I brought flowers to his relatives.</p>
<p>I don't see how you could incite a revolution or plot a coup while speaking such an ambiguous language. But then again, I don't see how someone could cause a society's communication skills to devolve to that point.</p>
</li>
<li><p>A very verbose language with a complicated grammar that makes it hard to write short sentences that leave part of the context out, so anyone trying to lie would have to be extremely careful not to contradict themselves. Again, I'm not sure how you could force people to speak such a language for long without it evolving to be more functional.</p>
</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-04T00:57:20.053Z
I added a few ideas for languages to my answer that previously focused on the worldbuilding aspect only.
Domino
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-02T04:22:45.690Z
2020-09-04T00:56:48.430Z
2020-09-04T00:56:48.430Z
Domino
<p>So, the government of Oceania in <em>1984</em> creates a new, altered cersion of English to make its people easier to control.</p>

<p>What about the opposite? </p>

<p>A dictator wants to make his people harder to control, so that any invading nation would have to go through an ungodly amount of trouble to subjugate them. </p>

<p>Could he do it?</p>

<p>I'd imagine he'd start by gradually altering the language to be more complex, more foreign to neighbouring languages, and popularizing words or phrases that are harder to interpret by an outside listener. </p>

<p>He has already completely isolated this nation from the surrounding region, and the language present there is pretty unusual for the region, think Hungarian or Basque. </p>

<p>I am however unsure if this'd be enough; other ideas would be helpful if you think it could be done. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-31T00:59:16.847Z
Interesting question! Gut feeling is that it wouldn't be enough, unless he's creating an invented language. Even then, I don't think it would be possible to make people harder to control in the event of an invasion and occupation. I also think this particular question might be more appropriate on Worldbuilding, as it doesn't seem to be about invented languages per se. Though I could be wrong on that score.
elemtilas
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-01T05:43:56.667Z
@elemtilas I am making a conlang, but I want to know what ways I can evolve it to show that part of their history. Thank you though!
Aezyc
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-23T14:24:51.293Z
Agreed with @elemtilas, that this is much more of a Worldbuilding SE question. But FWIW, I don't personally think a hypothetical society with a very difficult-to-learn language would present a problem for subjugation. Slaves who were abducted during the Middle Passage and shipped to Britain and the Americas probably didn't speak English, but no amount of morphological complexity in their native language is going to stop a motivated coloniser. They were taken away anyway and would've been killed for escaping or resisting, so what good would it have done if their language was super difficult?
Lou
<language-change><sapir-whorf>
Anti-Newspeak, making a language harder
# Anti-Newspeak, making a language harder

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-03-30)

So, the government of Oceania in *1984* creates a new, altered cersion of English to make its people easier to control.

What about the opposite?

A dictator wants to make his people harder to control, so that any invading nation would have to go through an ungodly amount of trouble to subjugate them.

Could he do it?

I'd imagine he'd start by gradually altering the language to be more complex, more foreign to neighbouring languages, and popularizing words or phrases that are harder to interpret by an outside listener.

He has already completely isolated this nation from the surrounding region, and the language present there is pretty unusual for the region, think Hungarian or Basque.

I am however unsure if this'd be enough; other ideas would be helpful if you think it could be done.

**Tags:** language-change, sapir-whorf
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Interesting question! Gut feeling is that it wouldn't be enough, unless he's creating an invented language. Even then, I don't think it would be possible to make people harder to control in the event of an invasion and occupation. I also think this particular question might be more appropriate on Worldbuilding, as it doesn't seem to be about invented languages per se. Though I could be wrong on that score.  
> **username_0**: @elemtilas I am making a conlang, but I want to know what ways I can evolve it to show that part of their history. Thank you though!  
> **username_2**: Agreed with @elemtilas, that this is much more of a Worldbuilding SE question. But FWIW, I don't personally think a hypothetical society with a very difficult-to-learn language would present a problem for subjugation. Slaves who were abducted during the Middle Passage and shipped to Britain and the Americas probably didn't speak English, but no amount of morphological complexity in their native language is going to stop a motivated coloniser. They were taken away anyway and would've been killed for escaping or resisting, so what good would it have done if their language was super difficult?  

---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2020-03-31. Score: 12

Implement some "levels of trust" in the language: Design phrases or word choices that signal the initiated that you are talking to non-trusted people or that non-trusted people may be listening, design other phrases that signal that you can talk more freely.

I have heard (but I don't have hard references for this) that travellers and gypsies in Europe have such devices in their languages.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: Tying this into the idea of [evidentiality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality), which already exists in natlangs, could be a cool idea as well.  

---

### Answer by username_5 on 2020-09-18. Score: 3

Incomprehensive languages on themselves never stopped conquering by brute force; the winner's language being imposed on the conquered people.

Forbidding the local language. Out of respect for many fine people in China, I will not mention China. China itself was under colonial suppression with even Opium, though Chinese is hard to master for an European. The colonial past of the Western countries has similar phenomena. There was also the persecution of Esperanto by dictators like Stalin; a language to *contact* with the rest of the world. As I thinks your proposed self-isolation may have a contrary weakening effect too.

A (pseudo) secret language like from gypsys, or a (high-level) signal language at least caused a cultural identity. But your argument of "ikh ken dir nisht farshteyn" (I cannot understand you - and you not me), would require a stoicism, like in Gordon R. Dickson's sf universe "Soldiers, Ask Not."

Without a culture ready to encorporate pride, stoicism, self-sacrifice it would be hard.
Never done with success (native Americans), but alluring as theme in science-fiction.

One scenario: the dictator could oppress his people, and let his secret agents launch a secret revolution language against oppression. *That* could be feasible.

A further bit of science fiction too: Jack Vance's [The Languages of Pao](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Languages_of_Pao).


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2022-10-13. Score: 3

The purpose of Newspeak (control) is not achieved by making the language simpler; it is by making it impossible to think certain undesirable things. If the ideology of an invading force is aligned with the ideology of the previous system, then Newspeak would just continue to work fine.

However, if the invaders have an opposing ideology, then the now occupied citizens would presumably not be able to communicate with them at all, as they lack the concepts and means to express the invaders' ideas.

So the complexity of the language is not really related to the issue of control (or non-control), which is achieved by other means.


---

### Answer by username_7 on 2020-09-02. Score: 1

Couldn't the dictator just impose a completely new language? If all children were taught this new language at school from a young age, and if all teaching materials and literature they had access to was in that language, they'd eventually forget their parents' tongue. It happens all the time with kids that move to a different country when they're young.

Imposing a new language through the education system would make it easier for the dictator to control access to information and therefore to control the population. At the same time it would create an artificial language barrier with the surrounding nations. Still, it wouldn't be the language itself that makes a population easier or harder to control, only the fact they use a different language.

If you really want a language whose grammar makes it inherently harder to lie and manipulate people, as a thought experiment you could perhaps try to create:

* A language even less expressive than stereotypical caveman speech, where the grammar is so ambiguous it is impossible to understand a sentence outside of its context. Take these words for example:

  > Anger death flower friend.

  This could mean many things: It angers me that my friend stepped on the flowers and ruined them / My anger ceased since I was brought flowers by a friend / The death of this person angers me, so I brought flowers to his relatives.

  I don't see how you could incite a revolution or plot a coup while speaking such an ambiguous language. But then again, I don't see how someone could cause a society's communication skills to devolve to that point.
* A very verbose language with a complicated grammar that makes it hard to write short sentences that leave part of the context out, so anyone trying to lie would have to be extremely careful not to contradict themselves. Again, I'm not sure how you could force people to speak such a language for long without it evolving to be more functional.

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: I added a few ideas for languages to my answer that previously focused on the worldbuilding aspect only.  

---

