Quotes About Language

So many dream of travel without having an idea of its reality: a language sounds exotic only when you don't understand it, and a culture appears better than your own only when you aren't in it.

The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives

Arabic also has a far greater facility to communicate sarcasm, and it can be employed precisely, or with pitch-perfect irony.

Sometimes, the words we speak are not the words we want to say.

I'm a poet. I distrust anything that starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop because people don't think in full, clear sentences.

It's hard for me to speak, whether in English or Afrikaans. The reason I write is because I cannot speak. I feel blunt.

La langue n'a pas inventé de nom pour qualifier ceux qui sont privés de leurs enfants. En revanche, l'homme qui ne travaille pas est un chômeur.

Concibe la memoria involuntaria como el lugar de la palabra verdadera, pero mientras el filósofo tropieza con esa intuición, el novelista, desplazando los contornos de la lengua, nos la hará comprender.

What is not clear is not French.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.

With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, and all that follows.

D'autre part la langue écrite, la langue littéraire, surchargée, pompeuse, pâteuse, prétentieuse, gorgée de digressions ineptes, absconse, évasive, allusive, ne réussissait qu'à lui transmettre un vilain bruit et de vilaines évidences très mal formulées (Black Village p. 123)

Jeff was called "dawg," "bro," "dude," and "Holmes," and

To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.

Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you dont have a passport.

Many think the language is nice or pretty—like the song of a bird in the forest. There's a sense that the forest and especially humans don't depend on that sound for anything; it doesn't fill bellies or help people lead longer, healthier, happier lives. But nothing could be further from the truth. Physical, mental, and spiritual health are deeply intertwined.

I like some of the old spaghetti westerns because the Navajo extras they hired spent the entire time talking smack about the actors in the Diné language. With proper translation, it's incredibly entertaining.

When you speak someone's language, they get you. And the passion is contagious.

As we seek to shape the change, we first have to see and explain to the world why language revitalization is important. Language warriors see the importance of their language, center their lives around it, and lead the effort to bring it back.

Bchook", machte das Huhn. "Sprich ordentlich!", schimpfte Arend und gab ihm einen leichten Klaps. […] "Bchok", bemerkte [das Huhn] dort, warf Arend einen beleidigten Blick zu und verbarg den Kop in [Neeles] Hals. "Es hat Arabisch gelernt", stellte sie verblüfft fest und streichelte seinen weißen Federflaum.

All true language is incomprehensible, Like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.

It has not been definitively proved that the language of words is the best possible language. And it seems that on the stage, which is above all a space to fill and a place where something happens, the language of words may have to give way before a language of signs whose objective aspect is the one that has the most immediate impact upon us.

The fixation of the theater in one language--written words, music, lights, noises--betokens its imminent ruin.

I am adding another language to the spoken language, and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic, its essential spellbinding power, for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten.