Quotes About Language

Mnóstwo zjawisk, które dziÅ› okreÅ›lamy mianem syndromów, miaÅ'o wtedy prostsze nazwy. Czasy byÅ'y prostsze. To wÅ'aÅ›nie dlatego ludzie mówiÄ… o nich stare, dobre czasy.

yes, with the mothers she had to make a little more effort, drowning them in language until they understood how out of their depth they were and the thin stream of their objections was completely subsumed by the quick-running currents of my mother's talk.

That girl," tutted Alsana as her front door slammed. "Swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter at the same time.

Well, maybe I use the wrong word in English. I mean that for Lamin the future is as certain as the past.

Nine SPEAKING IN TONGUES The following is based on a lecture given at the New York Public Library in December 2008. 1

People were not people but merely an effect of language. You could conjure them up and kill them in a sentence

Brute force outraged her, I think, because it was outside her beloved realm of language, and in response to it she really had nothing to say.

We fall asleep on words / we wake among words

He done taught me de maiden language all over.

Ah'm hard of understandin' at times.

It was just a handle to wind up the tongue with.

Though attacked by Wright and virtually ignored by his literary heirs, Hurston's ideas about language and craft undergird many of the most successful contributions to Afro-American literature that followed.

she constantly shifts back and forth between her "literate" narrator's voice and a highly idiomatic black voice

It would be absurd to say I'm not British - you can hear it when I speak.

If the academic community gets its way, we will soon all be speaking with a single voice.

I used to have a little Geordie accent when I was younger; they called me Little Geordie Fran.

I'm an American by accent, and I grew up in the States, living there between the age of three and 24.

I have a funny accent in every language.

I would pay good money for a British accent.

My mother has lived abroad and I've grown up hearing her talk, so probably that's where I get this accent from.

When I was very little, I had an Essex accent.

I still keep my accent.

I never really had a strong accent.

I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the U.S. It took three years to get the accent right.