Looking at the statcounter for the old blog. I haven’t changed it in 18 months, but the readers there are more varied and “purposeful” than the readers of this new WordPress version. I still don’t know why. Is it something about the format, or am I just dumbed down after three years of NAZI TORTURE? Probably the latter. In any case, the old “purposeful” readers often point to interesting items that I’ve forgotten. This 2017 item is worth a reprint because I later found a document that reinforces the last paragraph.
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Yesterday I was thinking about language as a genome, and I was thinking about early cyberwar.
Those two questions modulated in my raggedy non-linear mind, emitting a new question as one sideband.
Question: Has anyone ever modified a genome as a form of war?
Again the biological side is easy. That’s exactly what viruses do.
Again the linguistic side is hard, but history offers some possible examples. As abovementioned, when simple-noun people mix with complex-noun people, simple nouns win. When article-at-end people mix with separate-article people, article-at-end wins. Verbs seem to be immune to this type of horizontal gene transfer.
We know this type of modification occurs. Was it intentional? Did the Latin people mock and punish the native noun cases, essentially forcing the Teutons and Slavs to adopt Latin ways? An underclass that imitates the masters badly is even weaker and more Deplorable than an underclass confidently and comfortably using its own language and culture. Humiliation is a primary** goal for masters.
Modern invaders are trying to alter the grammar of their victims. Sorosians are using social force and legal force to remove the gender division of pronouns in English, and simultaneously trying to implant temporarily created and individually chosen pronouns for gender categories that don’t exist. The latter effort fits the ‘imitate badly’ goal. There’s no way a normal person can keep up with the daily changes of ‘my pronouns’, so the imitation will always be unsure and humiliating.
So far the latter effort is canceling out the former. There’s no way to adapt the deep categories of language to the momentary whims of delusional people. If the Sorosians would give up the Trans nonsense, they’d have a better chance of wiping out the gender distinction.
This change won’t work in any language except English, because all other Euro languages have grammatical gender that affects all nouns and doesn’t correlate with actual human gender. Only English has purely semantic gender that correlates exactly with biological gender.
Again it’s fortunate that the Sorosians don’t understand this basic point.
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** Exception to this rule: Stalin, a master of subjugation, didn’t use this form of humiliation. He took pains to preserve and strengthen the languages and cultures of various indigenous groups within the Empire. Orwell, echoing Stalin, also skipped this form. The proles were not expected to imitate the clothing and manners of the Inner Party; they were left free to maintain their own Cockney ways. Maybe Stalin wasn’t a champion subjugator after all. Maybe he understood that strong government is more energy-efficient when the people feel respected.
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Later I found an interesting monograph on language by Stalin himself, proving that he was anti-Woke.
Stalin wrote about language and revolution in 1950, in response to a sort of ‘Ask Me Anything’ event at Pravda. He concluded that language can’t be forcibly changed and shouldn’t be forcibly changed.
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It is more than a hundred years since Pushkin died. In this period the feudal system and the capitalist system were eliminated in Russia, and a third, a socialist system has arisen. Hence two bases, with their superstructures, were eliminated, and a new, socialist base has arisen, with its new superstructure. Yet, if we take the Russian language, for example, it has not in this long span of time undergone any fundamental change, and the modern Russian language differs very little in structure from the language of Pushkin.
What has changed in the Russian language in this period? The Russian vocabulary has in this period been greatly replenished; a large number of obsolete words have dropped out of the vocabulary; the meaning of a great many words has changed; the grammatical system of the language has improved. As to the structure of Pushkin’s language, with its grammatical system and its basic stock of words, in all essentials it has remained as the basis of modern Russian.
And this is quite understandable. Indeed, what necessity is there, after every revolution, for the existing structure of the language, its grammatical system and basic stock of words to be destroyed and supplanted by new ones, as is usually the case with the superstructure? What object would there be in calling “water,” “earth,” “mountain,” “forest,” “fish,” “man,” “to walk,” “to do,” “to produce,” “to trade,” etc., not water, earth, mountain, etc., but something else? What object would there be in having the modification of words in a language and the combination of words in sentences follow not the existing grammar, but some entirely different grammar? What would the revolution gain from such an upheaval in language? History in general never does anything of any importance without some special necessity for it.
The old [economic] superstructure can and should be destroyed and replaced by a new one in the course of a few years, in order to give free scope for the development of the productive forces of society; but how can an existing language be destroyed and a new one built in its place in the course of a few years without causing anarchy in social life and without creating the threat of the disintegration of society? Who but a Don Quixote could set himself such a task?
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I had no idea that Russia had AMA sessions, and had no idea that Stalin took the time to think about language. His thoughts are strictly realistic and perfectly correct. His last sentence should be a severe rebuke to the modern “communists” and “socialists” who believe falsely that they’re following Marx and Stalin when they try to destroy an existing language in the course of a few years.
Polistra's Mill 