1984: Appendix Summary & Analysis

The Appendix describes Newspeak in more detail than was possible in the narrative parts of 1984. Newspeak, the official language of Ingsoc and Oceania, was not commonly spoken or written, except in newspaper articles. It was expected to replace Oldspeak, or Standard English, by 2050, in the perfected version embodied by the Eleventh Edition of the Newspeak dictionary. The purpose of Newspeak was to make heretical thought impossible by eliminating undesirable words, and stripping existing words of unorthodox and secondary meanings. Even negative terms such as "bad" have been eliminated, replaced by words like "ungood."

In Newspeak, all parts of speech are interchangeable. A single word can be used as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Adjectives and adverbs were formed by adding the suffixes –ful and –wise, and prefixes such as un-, plus-, ante-, up-, down-. The prefix doubleplus- could be used to further modify or intensify a word.

There are three distinct classes of Newspeak words: the A, B, and C vocabularies. The A vocabulary consisted of simple words intended to express concrete objects or physical actions such as for eating, drinking, and working. All secondary meanings from these words are stripped away, so that they mean only exactly what they are meant to mean. The B vocabulary consists of compound words used for political purposes, such as "goodthink," and are designed to create ideological conformity among all Party members. Many B vocabulary names were commonly abbreviated, and a gabbling style of pronunciation called duckspeak encouraged, with the intention of making speech nearly independent of thought. The C vocabulary consisted of scientific and technical terms, and was seldom used in everyday speech.

The restricted vocabulary of Newspeak made it impossible to express unorthodox opinions or think heretical thoughts. Certain crimes could no longer be committed because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable. For instance, the Declaration of Independence could only be translated using the single word "crimethink." The decision to postpone the full adoption of the language until 2050 was based on the need to first translate a great number of technical volumes into Newspeak.