In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate.
[1]: 310–8 As a constructed language, Newspeak is a language of planned phonology, limited grammar, and finite vocabulary, much like the phonology, grammar, and vocabulary of Basic English (British American Scientific International Commercial English), which was proposed by the British linguist Charles Kay Ogden in 1930.
While employed as a propagandist by BBC during the Second World War (1939–1945), Orwell grew to believe that the constructions of Basic English, as a controlled language, imposed functional limitations upon the speech, the writing, and the thinking of the users.
Those who deny this [decadence] may argue that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development, by any direct tinkering with words or constructions.
I should expect to find — this is a guess, which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify — that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
Such dichotomies produced the linguistic and political concepts of goodthink and crimethink that reinforce the totalitarianism of The Party over the people of Oceania.
The limitations of Newspeak's vocabulary enabled the Party to effectively control the population's minds, by allowing the user only a very narrow range of spoken and written thought; hence, words such as: crimethink (thought crime), doublethink (accepting contradictory beliefs), and Ingsoc communicated only their surface meanings.
[1]: 309–10 In the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the lexicologist character Syme discusses his editorial work on the latest edition of the Newspeak Dictionary: By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared.
They are compound words and noun-verbs with political significance that are meant to impose and instill in Oceania's citizens the correct mental attitudes required by the Party.
In the appendix, Orwell explains that the very structure of the B vocabulary (the fact that they are compound words) carries ideological weight.
Newspeak is supposed to make this effort a conscious purpose: [...]Comintern is a word that can be uttered almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily.
[1]: 318 The B words in Newspeak are supposed to sound pleasant, while also being easily pronounceable, in an attempt to make speech on anything political "staccato and monotonous" and, ultimately, mask from the speaker all ideological content.
These words are the same scientific terms in English, but many of them have had their meanings rigidified to attempt, as with the A vocabulary, to prevent speakers from being able to express anti-government thoughts.
In spoken and written Newspeak, suffixes are also used in the elimination of irregular conjugations: Therefore, the Oldspeak sentence "He ran extremely quickly" would become "He runned doubleplusspeedwise".