The Ascians, from Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, are basically an über-communistic society where individual concerns are totally subservient to the will of the Group (the leaders of Ascia are called "The Group of Seventeen"); over the centuries, a curious form of thought control has been exerted over the Ascian people, with citizens only allowed to use sentences from a manifesto in their utterances -- any other speech is forbidden. The manifesto is a book of patriotic and philosophical sayings and aphorisms that forms the basis for how Ascia is run.
Despite the severe restrictions of this language, the people still seem to be able to communicate rather well. A short excerpt from Chapter XI of The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe will illustrate. This scene takes place in a military hospital during a war. The Ascians are the enemies. The protagonist and narrator was wounded in a battle and is convalescing with several other soldiers from his unit along with a captured and injured Ascian soldier. One of the soldiers is a female, who is being courted by two other soldiers. She states that she is having a hard time choosing between them and decides on a contest: since in a long marriage, beauty fades but conversation remains, she decides that she will marry the man who can tell her the best story. After the two soldiers have told their stories, the Ascian makes it known that he would like to try also (the female soldier is actually the unit's Ascian interpreter, so she can speak his language).
"The Ascian would be my suitor if he thought he could; haven't you seen the way he looks at me?" [Foila said.]
The Ascian recited, "United, men and women are stronger; but a brave woman desires children, and not husbands."
"He means that he would like to marry me, but he doesn't think his attentions would be acceptable. He's wrong." Foila looked from Melito to Hallvard [the other two suitors], and her smile had become a grin. "Are you two really so frightened of him in a storytelling contest? You must have run like rabbits when you saw an Ascian on the battlefield."
Neither of them answered, and after a time, the Ascian began to speak: "In times past, loyalty to the cause of the populace was to be found everywhere. The will of the Group of Seventeen was the will of everyone."
Foila interpreted: "Once upon a time..."
"Let no one be idle. If one is idle, let him band together with others who are idle too, and let them look for idle land. Let everyone they meet direct them. It is better to walk a thousand leagues than to sit in the House of Starvation."
"There was a remote farm worked in partnership by people who were not related."
"One is strong, another beautiful, a third cunning. Which is best? He who serves the populace."
"On this farm lived a good man."
[omitted]
"It is better to be just than to be kind, but only good judges can be just; let those who cannot be just be kind."
"In the capital he lived by begging."
At this point I could not help but interrupt. I told Foila that I thought it was wonderful that she understood so well what each of the stock phrases the Ascian used meant in the context of the story, but that I could not understand how she did it -- how she knew, for example, that the phrase about kindness and justice meant that the hero had become a beggar.
"Well, suppose that someone else -- Melito, perhaps -- were telling a story, and at some point in it he thrust out his hand and began to ask for alms. You'd know what that meant, wouldn't you?"
I agreed that I would.
"It's just the same here. Sometimes we find Ascian soldiers who are too hungry or too sick to keep up with the rest, and after they understand we aren't going to kill them, that business about kindness and justice is what they say. In Ascian, of course. It's what beggars say in Ascia."
After the Ascian finishes his story, the narrator thinks about what the Ascian language says about speech in general.
From this story, though it was the shortest and most simple too of all those I have recorded in this book, I feel that I have learned several things of some importance. First of all, how much of our speech, which we think freshly minted in our own mouths, consists of set locutions. The Ascian seemed to speak only in sentences he had learned by rote, though until he used each for the first time we had never heard them. Foila seemed to speak as women commonly do, and if I had been asked whether she employed such tags, I would have said that she did not -- but how often one might have predicted the ends of her sentences from their beginnings.
Second, I learned how difficult it is to eliminate the urge for expression. The people of Ascia were reduced to speaking only with their masters' voice; but they had made of it a new tongue, and I had no doubt, after hearing the Ascian, that by it he could express whatever he thought he wished.
In regards to Ascian, Zompist has commented:
It's cute, and I salute Wolfe for coming up with something provocative about language.
As described, nonetheless, Ascian sounds quite impossible, unless the Ascians are allowed to speak 'normally', outside the book, when talking to and as children. The system only works if the individual aphorisms can be decomposed-- e.g. the reference to "kindness" in the aphorism associated with beggars.
Ascian is a bit far-fetched and right on the border of credibility. I do believe that Zompist is correct: children (and those who teach them to speak) are allowed to speak freely, and they don't have to start using the aphorisms exclusively until they are adults. Using that particular aphorism as a means of begging is a bit pointless, unless the speaker and listener are aware of the meanings of each individual word, such as "justice" and "kindness." It does seem that the Ascians have this kind of knowledge of their language and its words, so that does point to a period in their lives when they must have been taught the language in a more normal fashion.
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