Quotes from David Crystal

Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language.

The ethos of 50 years ago was that there was one kind of English that was right and everything else was wrong; one kind of access that was right and everything else was inferior. Then nobody touched language for two generations. When it gradually came back in, we didn't want to go back to what we did in the 1950s. There's a new kind of ethos now.

Speaking, writing, and signing are the three ways in which a language lives and breathes. They are the three mediums through which a language is passed on from one generation to the next.

You don't usually get a compound word where the first part is a slang thing and the second part is a rather ordinary or formal thing - they don't usually mix - but 'gobsmacked' is a perfect exception to that rule.

Language itself changes slowly, but the Internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly.

What turns teenagers on more than the Internet these days? If you can get a language out there, the youngsters are much more likely to think it's cool.

The Internet has given us 10 or 15 new styles of communication: long messages like blogging, and then short messages like texting and tweeting. I see it all as part of an expanding array of linguistic possibilities.

There is no such thing as an ugly accent, like there's no such thing as an ugly flower.

When we look at the specific effect of the Internet on language, languages asking the question, 'Has English become a different language as a result of the Internet?' the answer has to be no.

It doesn't take a language long to disappear once the spirit to continue with it leaves its community. In fact, the speed of the decline has been one of the main findings of recent linguistic research.

How do you spell the name of the Irish prime minister? It sounds like 'teeshuck', but we spell it 'taoiseach.' We respect foreign spellings these days - a sign of our more egalitarian times, perhaps.

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries eventually reflect popular choices. And the Internet is allowing more people to influence spelling than ever before.

'Spell it Out' rose to be number 4 on the best-selling Amazon chart - ahead of 'Fifty Shades of Grey!' Who ever would have thought that spelling would one day beat sex - even if it was for only a few hours!

Languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese are healthy languages. They exist in spoken, written, and signed forms, and they're used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. But most of the 6,000 or so of the world's languages aren't in such a healthy state.

Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.

A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.

Everybody wants to say who they are and where they're from. And the easiest and cheapest and most universal way of doing that is through their accent.

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject.

The story of English spelling is the story of thousands of people - some well-known, most totally unknown - who left a permanent linguistic fingerprint on our orthography.

One notable feature is that English doesn't have much of a system for expressing relative social status.

Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.'

There's nothing unusual about a single language dying. But what's going on today is extraordinary when we compare the situation to what has happened in the past. We're seeing languages dying out on a massive scale.

In Cardiff, I've heard a number of accent mixes that weren't previously heard before such as Cardiff-Arabic and Cardiff-Hindi. This pattern is repeating itself in many urban communities across the U.K.; people are especially keen to develop a strong sense of local identity.

One of the places the full stop is really being revised in a really fundamental way is on the Internet. You look at the Internet or any instant messaging exchange - anything that is a fast dialogue taking place. People simply do not put full stops in unless they want to make a point.