Bee: a contaminated term goes viral – linguistic essay on depopulation

This article is a linguistic addition to the more argumentation-theoretical article Repopulation: a contaminated term goes viral, including the text of this article, also as a Dutch version.

Language is sloppy and changeable

We need to be aware that language is a particularly sloppy communication vehicle. You can use it very precisely, but everything is allowed, so that precision is not a necessity. Everyone is allowed to use language, even people who can't think very precisely. Unlike computer languages, where you have to indicate for each word at least whether it is a variable, a function, a constant, or whatever, spoken language is completely free. That offers unbridled creativity. But that leads to inaccuracies, a problem that in practice is solved by context. In a fledgling love relationship, you fill in those inaccuracies in an understanding way with desirable outcomes. In politics, you use these inaccuracies to torch each other for words: that's what we call a semantic discussion these days. In the past, 'semantics' was about the exact meaning of words or the content, but now it is mainly about the use of the words themselves: the appearance. That's an example of a shifted meaning.

The changeability of language is clearly visible in the spelling, because old books show the solidified spelling of a particular moment. The older it is, the harder it is to read. Just as changeable are the meanings and application of certain words. In other eras with different contexts, meanings can shift. In a rapidly changing social context, new expressions sometimes have to be found. Words are derived from other words or they are put together. Obsolete words are resurrected with a slightly different meaning. Verbs are 'genominalised' (nouns are made from them and vice versa, they are conjugated, kneaded and trimmed, anything goes... Language is alive.

Meanings are therefore not anchored in dictionaries; Dictionaries are snapshots of common spellings and applications. Dictionaries report on language use, they are behind the times.

How Language Uses Anticipates Dictionary Definitions: Examples

The verb 'to repopulate' is part of our vocabulary. On the Fok forum, the word 'omvolker' is even used creatively. Some examples:

Column by Mark Elchardus, emeritus professor of sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel:Repopulation is a matter of every day (3 March 2020, also published in De Morgen).

Column by Ronald Sørensen": You can't say repopulate (May 11, 2023)

Column by Ronald Sørensen": Repopulating, too sick for words (June 29, 2024)

https://forum.fok.nl/topic/2712510/1/999/waarom-is-het-woord-omvolking-zo-controversieel.html

Het Reformatorisch Dagblad, (May 2024): Are-our-leaders-consciously-engaged-with-repopulation?

The dictionaries are lagging behind. The verb to repopulate does not even appear in it yet. ChatGPT follows language developments better than Van Dale, which still has a 1950s interpretation. Van Dale does not even use the term "depopulation theory".

Van Dale:

Take a word like "discriminate." That comes from the Latin "discriminare," which meant to separate or distinguish. The British still use it that way. But with us, you can't use it in that sense anymore, except in a formalized setting (strict scientific language, for example).

For example, in Dutch (and in more Germanic languages) it is unclear what it means when a word ends in "ing". Take "Editing". When you're editing a music composition, the result of that editing is the "editing." But the process you're engaged in during editing, you can also call that "editing," as in the sentence:
"During the adaptation of the epic, he didn't think about anything else."
That may also be: "While editing the epic, he didn't think about anything else."

If you think that you can replace the word "edit" with "editing" everywhere, you are making a colossal fallacy. The sentence "I really love the adaptation of Tomorrow, as Sidney Christmas sang it" is no longer correct if you replace "the adaptation" with "the edit".

This is the source of the misunderstanding.

The first is a noun and refers to the result of editing, a concrete object or phenomenon, the second is also a noun but somewhat less independent: it is the nominalization of a verb form. It is actually the reference to the verb "to edit", the act, the activity of editing, with the appearance of a noun. Let's call these two 'condition' and 'action'. So we have:

Operation (nw, state): object, phenomenon
Machining (n.w., operation): purposeful processing

Compare with:

Overpopulation (nw, condition): object, phenomenon
Overcrowding (nw, act): the deliberate overcrowding

Hey – you can't. We've never heard of active overcrowding, so we understand that "overpopulation" refers to an organic process, a side effect of something else. Overpopulation just happens, for all kinds of reasons, and no one is looking for a theory behind it for the time being. We don't see it as human purposeful activity, but as a process that leads to a state of overpopulation:

Overpopulation (nw, condition): object, phenomenon
Overpopulation (nw, process): the process of overcrowding

Other alternatives have emerged for this 'process': 'excessive population growth', for example.
The reverse is true for the non-existent term 'underpopulation', which is covered by more specific causal descriptions such as 'ageing', 'low birth rate', 'depopulation'.

Anyone who immediately thinks of depopulation, deportation or genocide when they think of 'depopulation' is wrong.

It should work analogously to the original, uncontaminated form of the word "omvolking". Think of Suriname, which started around 1500 with 100% indigenous population. In a few hundred years, migration, colonization and cultural exchange have led to an enormous demographic transition: now 3% of the population is descended from the original indigenous population. There was no theory of repopulation behind it. Nobody came up with that idea, it was the course of things.

But then came the Nazis. They were striving for 'repopulation'. Since then, 'deliberate repopulation' no longer sounds as implausible as 'deliberate overcrowding'. According to the rules of sloppy language (see 'Editing'), this deliberate activity is also called 'repopulation'. Thus we are left with three meanings of the same word: the state, the process, and the deliberate activity.

Repopulation (nw, passive): object, phenomenon, state
Repopulation (nw, process): the process of repopulation
Repopulation (nw, act): the purposeful repopulation

Why does this matter?

You can use an ambiguous word (ambigu = multiple meanings) to create an ambiguous word. straw man reasoning stuff. You can challenge a statement that your opponent didn't make at all while using the same word. I show this in the sister article, including the text of this article, also as a Dutch version.

The fact that the media (NRC again) recently made a strong number of the same term "omvolking" fits in with the media mission to sabotage the 'ultra-right' cabinet after the failed character assassination attempt on Ronald Plasterk. Nothing is left behind. Someone like Jan Paternotte gratefully picks up such a media suggestion and dives into Wikipedia. Jan has understood from the media that "omvolking" is a very bad word because only one of the three meanings appeals to him: the evil one. He also cites the AIVD, where they are again sloppy with semantics.

All terms with "repopulation" in them are framed in such a way that you are not even allowed to be against them anymore: the are simply no longer allowed to be named. They've been censored, they've been cancelled. You can call it ostrich politics, but that's how it goes in media and politics.

Chewing on those terms for a while

The term Repopulation SEC means nothing more than a population that changes its composition. The term has become contaminated because of its connotation with the Nazis, who actively pursued Germanizing repopulation (Germanization of conquered territories), wanted to cleanse their own population (they did NOT call it repopulating) and resorted to inhumane practices in repopulating conquered territories.

The result of the process of 'repopulation', you could call it 'repopulation', is observable: the population of a city or neighbourhood no longer looks the same as it did 20 years ago. Many people speak to each other in languages that you don't understand as a native Dutch person and manners don't match. This is an organic process, nowadays mainly a side effect of border and migration policy, economic conditions, war, increased mobility. You can applaud this or find it disastrous and everything in between, but denying it is ostrich politics.

If people are actually hurt by the use of the word "omvolking", you can choose a different word for it. We also said goodbye to Zwarte Piet. We have -reluctantly- reprimanded the Black Petes legion into Rainbow Petes.

Of course, repopulation can be a goal of certain activities, but then you have to explicitly speak of active or deliberate repopulation. Just as in the case of a fire you have to speak of a lit fire or arson or pyromania. Repopulation was one of the goals of the Nazis. The theory why and how they wanted to achieve that, Their repopulation theory So, it was that a country was better off if its population was replaced by Aryans. Violence and genocide were not shunned.

I write emphatically "their repopulation theory" because there are also other theories of repopulation, such as multiculturalism that explicitly advocates a change in the composition of the population.

From a multicultural angle, for example, there is also a plea for repopulation of the Netherlands: more colour and more diversity is the goal, with more tolerance, a creative melting pot of cultures and an open society with a fairer distribution of our wealth as a result.

Remains the Population conspiracy theory. There are all kinds of variants that have in common that they exclude organic repopulation as a side effect: it must and it will be intentional. This whole migration policy, it is suspected, was devised to force repopulation. We are being chased away! Conspiracy theorists recognize a systematic set-up; a theory that is being rolled out. Consider, for example, the delusion that the current migration policy is being carried out at the behest of a small group of baby-blood-drinking royals and nobles, big industrialists and politicians, who initiate each other into Klaus Schwab-like capes with an erotic ritual, blackmailed if necessary after temptations on a private island of a movie tycoon who committed suicide in his cell, controlled by a 5G pole. A story similar to the one outlined by the AIVD.

So.

If we use the word "Repopulation" to equate with "Population conspiracy theory", we can no longer use a word such as 'discrimination', 'slavery' or 'depopulation', because these can all be intended goals, or they once were. Slavery was central to the business model of human traffickers, do we still want to use that word? "Discrimination" is also a concept that has been part of the body of thought that characterizes the darkest pages in history. A word that is still used, also by the groups that are now climbing the curtains because of the term "omvolking".

Strangely enough, not so long ago, it was a question of whether you were for or against such a line of thought. Being against slavery was good. It was detestable to admire, condon, facilitate, or profit from slavery. The curious thing is that in the case of "repopulation" it is the other way around. It is not the one who embraces the Nazi theory who is pilloried, but the one who speaks out vehemently against depopulation.

Do we still get it?

I do. The obvious explanation is that those who advocate population change feel uncomfortable because they are in a similar position to the Nazis: after all, they themselves are the ones who facilitate "repopulation". They don't want that word because it's a Nazi term, despite the fact that we've seen how beautiful (multi)culturalist, (multi)racial ideals of society can be. For the Netherlands, a country of cheeseheads, it is an unmistakable form of deliberate repopulation if the aim is to change the composition of the population. So repopulation is allowed, it is even a crucial part of the multicultural philosophy – it just shouldn't be called that.