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User:IJzeren Jan

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SEMI-RETIRED
This user is no longer very active on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia:Babel
nlDeze gebruiker heeft het Nederlands als moedertaal.
pl-4Ten użytkownik posługuje się językiem polskim prawie jak językiem ojczystym.
en-4This user can contribute with a near-native level of English.
isv-3Tutoj upotrěbitelj posluživaje se medžuslovjanskym na vysokom uravnju.
Тутој употрєбитељ послуживаје се меджусловјанскым на высоком уравњу.
Wdk-3Ił wcielzatórz pocie kotrzybytar en lęgwie wenedczej sur niwiół owęcaty i przeście włydy.
de-3Dieser Benutzer hat sehr gute Deutschkenntnisse.
fr-2Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau intermédiaire en français.
la-2Hic usor media latinitate contribuere potest.
ru-2Этот участник неплохо знает русский язык.
af-2Hierdie gebruiker het 'n gemiddelde begrip van Afrikaans.
pap-2 This user is able to communicate with parrots on a moderate level.
vo-2At pösod zenodiko pükon Volapüki.
uk-1Користувач може робити внесок українською мовою на початковому рівні.
grc-1Ὅδε ὁ χρήστης δύναται συμβάλλεσθαι ὀλίγῃ γνώσει τῆς ἀρχαίας ἑλληνικῆς.
...This user would like to be able to speak some more languages.
Conlang WikiProject
This user is a member of WikiProject Constructed languages.
This user is a member of the
Ill Bethisad Project
This user has created a global account. IJzeren Jan's main account is on Wikipedia (in Dutch).
Free political prisoners!

Subpage: User:IJzeren Jan/List Of Conlang-Related Articles

Welcome!

I'm not a person who likes talking about himself, so I will limit myself to the necessary. My real name is Jan van Steenbergen, I was born on June 3, 1970 (on the same day when Hjalmar Schacht died), and I live in Zaandam, near Amsterdam. Educated as a specialist on Eastern Europe, mainly Poland, I've worked as a journalist, as a translator, and (currently) as a software engineer in a bank. My main interests are: Poland and Ukraine; language, particularly constructed languages; Classical music; history. I am mostly active in the Dutch Wikipedia, under user name IJzeren Jan. Here I will probably mostly be dealing with interwiki links, and perhaps small modifications of existing articles. Also, I might dig up interesting stuff to translate into Dutch or Polish.

My user name, IJzeren Jan literally means Iron Jan. How so? Well, during my student years I used to play computer games from time to time, and "IJzeren Jan" was one of my favourite nicknames I used in highscores. Later I almost automatically used it in my e-mail address, and now as my Wikipedia user name. Only much later I learnt that IJzeren Jan was also the nickname of my famous countryman Jan Pieterszoon Coen, who also happens to be the symbol of my native town Hoorn.

I am the author of several constructed languages, two of which, Wenedyk and Interslavic, are listed in the English wiki. More about this and other things can be found on my home page, http://steen.free.fr/ .


Best regards,

Jan



Portal:Constructed languages
Today's language
Newspeak is the language of Oceania, a fictional totalitarian state ruled by the Party, who created the language to meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism (Ingsoc). In the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Newspeak is a controlled language, of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, a linguistic design meant to limit the freedom of thought—personal identity, self-expression, free will—that ideologically threatens the régime of Big Brother and the Party, who thus criminalized such concepts as thoughtcrime, contradictions of Ingsoc orthodoxy.

In "The Principles of Newspeak", the appendix to the novel, George Orwell explains that Newspeak usage follows most of the English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning. Linguistically, the contractions of Newspeak—Ingsoc (English Socialism), Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), etc.—derive from the syllabic abbreviations of Russian, which identify the government and social institutions of the Soviet Union, such as politburo (Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), Comintern (Communist International), kolkhoz (collective farm), and Komsomol (Young Communists' League). The long-term political purpose of the new language is for every member of the Party and society, except the Proles—the working-class of Oceania—to exclusively communicate in Newspeak, by the year A.D. 2050; during that 66-year transition, the usage of Oldspeak (Standard English) shall remain interspersed among Newspeak conversations.

Newspeak is also a constructed language, of planned phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, like Basic English, which Orwell promoted (1942–44) during the Second World War (1939–45), and later rejected in the essay "Politics and the English Language" (1946), wherein he criticises the bad usage of English in his day. Find out more...