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Linguistic relativity
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=== Artificial languages === {{Main|Constructed languages|Experimental languages}} In their fiction, authors such as [[Ayn Rand]] and [[George Orwell]] explored how linguistic relativity might be exploited for political purposes. In Rand's [[Anthem (novella)|''Anthem'']], a fictive [[communist]] society removed the possibility of individualism by removing the word "I" from the language.<ref>{{cite web | title = Critical Essays The Meaning and Importance of "I" in Anthem | url = https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/anthem/critical-essays/the-meaning-and-importance-of-i-in-anthem | website = CliffNotes| date = 2021 | access-date = October 25, 2021}}</ref> In Orwell's ''[[1984 (book)|1984]]'' the authoritarian state created the language [[Newspeak]] to make it impossible for people to think critically about the government, or even to contemplate that they might be impoverished or oppressed, by reducing the number of words to reduce the thought of the locutor.{{sfn|Pinker|1994|loc=chap. 3}} Others have been fascinated by the possibilities of creating new languages that could enable new, and perhaps better, ways of thinking. Examples of such languages designed to explore the human mind include [[Loglan]], explicitly designed by [[James Cooke Brown]] to test the linguistic relativity hypothesis, by experimenting whether it would make its speakers think more logically. [[Suzette Haden Elgin]], who was involved with the early development of neuro-linguistic programming, invented the language [[Láadan]] to explore linguistic relativity by making it easier to express what Elgin considered the female worldview, as opposed to [[Standard Average European]] languages, which she considered to convey a "male centered" worldview.<ref>{{Citation |last=Okrent |first=Arika |title=In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language |publisher=Spiegel & Grau |year=2009 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/inlandofinvented00okre/page/208 208–257] |isbn=978-0-385-52788-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/inlandofinvented00okre/page/208 }}</ref> John Quijada's language [[Ithkuil]] was designed to explore the limits of the number of cognitive categories a language can keep its speakers aware of at once.<ref>{{cite news|last=Foer|first=Joshua |title=UTOPIAN FOR BEGINNERS: An amateur linguist loses control of the language he invented|newspaper=The New York Times|date=24 December 2012 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/12/24/121224fa_fact_foer}}</ref> Similarly, Sonja Lang's [[Toki Pona]] was developed according to a [[Taoism|Taoist]] philosophy for exploring how (or if) such a language would direct human thought.<ref>''A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting the World'', Paul J. J. Payack, (C) 2007, p. 194.</ref>
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