Okay now you're just trolling me. The question that starts with "I have a question for you." Did you look at the Orwell link.

> Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Language is indeed consciously shaped. Look at the history of Italian. It doesn't just happen, and Wikipedia definitely doesn't just happen.

And if you disagree with Orwell, fine, just don't trot him out in support of your points. Which was my original point.

Oh I think you're talking to two different people here, sorry. I never mentioned orwell.

You need to chill. I'm doing my best to engage with your viewpoint within my completely human tolerance of discredited scientific ideas. Like the other commenter said you're doing the language equivalent of endorsing phrenology here and all I can have is imperfect patience for it.

But I'm not trolling you or intentionally fucking with you or anything. You are fundamentally wrong about how language works and maybe what language even is, and you're extremely hostile to genuine attempts to engage with that so I'm gonna take off. Good luck with it.

I get heated about this lol. If you really meant well, I'm not sure what to say. Try reading a comment before responding to it. My original comment was about the validity of an Orwell analogy, a point which you have absolutely refused to engage.

Calling you a troll was my most charitable reading of your obtuseness, because if you weren't willfully so, you must be either unconsciously so, or, well, just bad at reading.

If I'm a phrenologist, so is Orwell, and newspeak is not a valid analogy.

> Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

That's what language is. That's how language works.

I love Orwell, but he was flat wrong in that essay. He was playing at being a linguist and showing his ignorance.