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Putin Words Into People’s Mouths
Foreign Affairs
Putin Words Into People’s Mouths
Western critics condemn a new Russian dictionary as propaganda, but we have our own language problems.
What is the dictionary definition of the word “dictionary”? According to my own nearest such volume, it is as follows: “A reference book containing words and phrases, alphabetically arranged, together with accurate information and definitions of such, especially their forms, pronunciation and meanings.”
But how do we know the dictionary is to be trusted in this assessment? Relying upon a dictionary to provide an unbiased and objective assessment of itself seems something of a circular exercise, like asking a fact-checker to check his own facts, or a child to mark his own homework. How do we know that the dictionary itself is not lying?
Vladimir Putin’s Russia has recently introduced the first edition of a new “normative dictionary” for use across the entire Russosphere, intended to provide the “official” definition of every single word in the Russian language. For a supposedly “comprehensive” reference work, however, the book seems to contain certain curious omissions. Although as yet incomplete, with only 49,000 out of an intended 120,000 entries in place, it seems certain words are to remain forever free of inclusion nonetheless, even once the project is fully finished. The logical conclusion? That the words not included officially do not exist.
This will be bad news for any Russians who enjoy using curse-words. Modern obscenities are not to be included amongst the dictionary’s listings, thereby making the very act of a pure and noble Russian citizen so much as ever uttering a single swear-word utterly impossible—at least in theory. The original Russian root morphemes for such modern-day terms are to be included, however, and listed for the first time as being formally obscene, thereby allowing Russian police to prosecute people for using contemporary variants of them. Thus, in Russia it would now appear potentially possible to be arrested for using a word which does not even exist.
Even more sinister are certain other words which apparently do not exist—such as “gulag.” If there’s no word for a concept, then the politically inconvenient concept itself is intended to disappear from human knowledge too.
Accessing an earlier online version of the same basic text, the word “Ukraine” does not appear to exist in 21st-century Russia either, very much echoing Vladimir Putin’s own oft-expressed opinion upon the matter. If Ukraine does not exist as a separate state, though, then that does not mean that the Ukrainian people do not exist. They do, but only as compliant citizens (or perhaps possessions) of a wider Russia.
Such a message is not intended to be imparted simply by the specific crude redefinition of the actual word “Ukrainian”, but instead via systematically lacing other definitions throughout with similar implications, thereby making the entire reference-work a web of self-reinforcing lies, a bit like Wikipedia. The word “unity”, for instance, is illustrated like this:
unity, n. 1. Integrity, indivisibility; cohesion. Unity of the system of public authority. The historical unity of Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians. The unity of the peoples of Russia (a traditional Russian spiritual and moral value: a condition in which people of various ethnic, national, cultural, and religious groups, striving for shared interests, goals, and values, coexist in peace, harmony, and mutual understanding).
Although the word “Ukraine” is not yet included in the book’s pages, certain interchangeable synonyms for the nation are, such as the highly obscure term “limitrophe,” which would appear to be what you are now meant to call “a country Putin wants to invade”:
limitrophe, n. [from Latin limitrophus – borderland]. Politics. In 21st-century Europe: a state used as a buffer between Western Europe and Russia, which is politically, economically, and culturally incapable of being independent.
(For Donald Trump, that’s just another term for “Greenland.”)
Putin’s textbook is called the Explanatory Dictionary of the State Language of the Russian Federation, with the specific phrase “State Language” there being particularly salient. “The Russian language is the cornerstone of our statehood,” said Russia’s Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov, language being reconceived here in classic Orwellian terms as a means of control. Established via Putin’s specific personal government decree, it is intended not to be descriptive, as dictionaries are generally assumed to be, but prescriptive; to inform users not how language is used, but to instruct them how it is to be used instead.
Users are told what to think about important concepts, not simply informed about them in a dispassionate fashion. Just read the definition of the term “authoritarianism”:
authoritarianism, n. [from Greek auctoritas – authority]. Politics. A form of state governance based on the authority of a specific individual, with limited public participation in making key decisions on political, economic, and social issues (cf.: absolutism, autocracy). Considered the most effective form of governance in difficult times for a country, as it allows for diverse forms of property ownership, is often supported by a bloc of parties and movements, does not eliminate hostile forces, and permits the limited existence of value systems other than traditional ones.
“Considered the most effective form of governance in difficult times for a country” by whom? By the authoritarian currently governing the country in difficult times, that’s by whom.
Intended to become the compulsory dictionary all state agencies are required to use in their work once completed, the book will be very useful when helping Putin’s regime define reality to its own legislative liking, particularly when it comes to comprehensively defining a word like “dissident”, for example. No wonder certain entries were specifically overseen not by linguists and etymologists, as might be expected, but by the Russian Justice Ministry. Some new definitions were even swiped directly verbatim from the mouth of Putin himself—and he never lies, does he?
Another form of ministry involved in the dictionary’s compilation was that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which intervened to ensure the book wasn’t just too gay or deviant. Overall responsibility for coordinating the project lay with the Rector of St. Petersburg State University, Nikolay Kropachev, who explained the combined religious, moral and political import of his work thus:
The connection between the dictionary and the decree [commanding its creation] of the President of Russia (let me remind you, the main graduate of St. Petersburg University!) is of a systemic nature: the dictionary becomes a practical tool for the implementation of State policy to preserve and strengthen traditional Russian spiritual and moral values. With its help, we pass on our values and traditions to future generations and create a reliable system for protecting the spiritual and moral foundations [of the nation].
The Orthodox Church has some powerful allies in this quest. “Moral values should be integrated into law,” explained the Russian Justice Minister, Konstantin Chuychenko, and the best way to do so was to alter the legal definition of various perceived moral failings in the dictionary, thus preparing the way for anyone later found guilty of them to be one day prosecuted by the State as de facto heretics. This is how the new textbook ended up gaining Orthodox-friendly definitions of those common occidental diseases of homosexuality and lesbianism as follows:
homosexuality, n. [from Greek homós – same, identical + sexus – sex]. A form of sexual deviation manifested in the satisfaction of sensual desire with persons of one’s own sex; sodomy, pederasty.
lesbianism, n. A form of sexual deviation manifested in the satisfaction of sensual desire by a woman with another woman; female homosexuality.
At least the entries didn’t just say “typical Westerners”.
Abortion, meanwhile, is set up to be potentially banned sometime soon by defining the word “life” as somehow now being a “traditional Russian spiritual and moral value” like so:
life, n. 2. A traditional Russian spiritual and moral value: the period of a person’s existence from conception and social formation through death.
Notice that life begins specifically “from conception”, not a certain number of months prior to birth. Thus, the above definition of the word “life” also surreptitiously functions as being a definition of the word “murder” too, should the Justice Ministry one day so decree it, in order to try and fix Russia’s cratering birthrate.
Putin’s dictionary certainly promotes traditional family values. The definition of the word “hatred” gives the example usage “hatred of the institution of the family,” while the word “heroine” is illustrated by the fine example of a mother who has raised 10 or more children. (Surely she would serve better as a definition of the word “tired”?)
Recent reporting on the dictionary for Western eyes has focused upon such morally tinged definitions as being examples of supposed “far-right”, anti-progressive, anti-Western “extremism” upon Putin’s part. Disapproving left-wing profiles do not fail to include the text’s distinctly traditionalist definition of the word “marriage”, for example:
marriage, n. 1. A family union between a man and a woman … Same-sex marriage: a homosexual intimate union between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church and not supported by the Russian State.
Of course, the problem is that that is actually accurate, isn’t it? It was Western liberals who suddenly and capriciously chose to redefine and widen the age-old meaning of the word “marriage” to include a union between two men or two women, in the early 2000s; they were the ones who decided to begin playing around with the dictionaries first here, not the Russians.
When it comes to (previously) simple terms like “man” and “woman” themselves, Putin’s dictionary is actually more likely to be accurate than English-language Western ones now are. In 2022, the Cambridge Dictionary ridiculously rewrote its definition of the word “woman” to also include the word “man”: suggested usage examples included “Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.” Just to parse that properly, that actually means “Mary is a man.”
Even learning a foreign language is no longer to be exempt from such linguistic propaganda. New French, German, and Spanish lessons for UK high school students are to be hereafter remodeled to focus upon the allegedly “most common” 2,000 words in usage across continental Europe today—words like “non-binary”, “diversity” and “lesbian”, for example (and also the word “Eid”, which suggests this particular fad won’t last all too long once the region’s demographics perform their final shift). Schoolchildren may no longer be able to functionally ask when the next train to Stuttgart leaves, but at least they’ll be able to inquire as to the location of the nearest, most convenient non-binary lesbian for hire.
This is a form of manipulative, politically motivated linguistic social engineering every bit as extreme as that in play in Putin’s Russia. What normal person has ever asked for this kind of thing to be foisted upon them and their kids? No one, that’s who. I notice that, in the Explanatory Dictionary of the State Language of the Russian Federation, the definition of “democracy” includes an explanation that the very word is primarily a Western concept, a lying, fraudulent one with the alternative identical available synonym of “sham democracy.” At least Putin’s dictionary tells the truth about some things inside.
The post Putin Words Into People’s Mouths appeared first on The American Conservative.
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