Quotes About Language

Furthermore, material remains tell us little about the intangible parts of culture: about marriage and dinner recipes and how the world was categorized. (Anyone who has ever learned a second language knows that different cultures look at the world differently, from what colors and how many of them form the rainbow to who is counted as kin.)

It is so hard trying to say what you mean.

Jamie let go of me. "Shut your mucky gob, man." He stepped close to our fearless leader in the dark, took hold of his jacket by the collar, and in a dead quiet voice that had gone dangerously Scots, threatened heatedly, "Talk like that again wi' these brave lassies listenin' an' Ah'll tear the filthy English tongue frae yer heid, so Ah will.

I am in the Special Operations Executive because I can speak French and German and am good at making up stories, and I am a prisoner in the Ormaie Gestapo HQ because I have no sense of direction whatsoever.

I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.

With her words in my mind while I'm reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She's right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting.

Listening to the Rabbits talk about their operations was like watching a horror movie in a foreign language. You sort of hoped you'd misunderstood what was going on. And then when you figured out what was really going on, it was worse than you'd thought.

p'tit morceau de merde écossaise.

Don't speak till sound has eclipsed its idea.

We're rowing like Greeks before those trees turn to treason, erased of all their writing.

Raging inwardly I go on climbing, dragging my brute after me, punctuating my 'Khaidas' --come on-- with every curse I have ever known, in every language. Not yet being acquainted with Arabic, exceedingly helpful in such cases I am told, German-Swiss seems at the moment endowed with remarkable properties.

everything spoken on this earth contains a truth not always apparent at the time.

It's so weird all the different names they have for groups of animals. They have pride of lions, school of fish, rack of lamb. . . .

Haiku sounds like I'm Saying hi to someone named Ku. Hi, Ku. Hello.

Why is it that when you wipe up dust its called dusting but when you wipe up a spill its not called spilling? Just something to think about.

Actually this is really funny - one time she accidentally forgot to leave a note and I had no idea she had even moved. I was living in the house with a beautiful Mexican family for three months before I realized they weren't my cousins visiting from out of town. They were so nice. They called me "Quien es, quien es," which I thought was a beautiful name.

I don't know why the word "mustache" exists, though. Can't we just call it lip hair?)

Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, 'Life in the Fast Lane?' That's what they're saying right there? You think, 'why have I been singing 'wipe in the vaseline?' how many people have heard me sing 'wipe in the vaseline?' I am an idiot.

You should never assume. You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of you and me because that's how it's spelled.

Heaven is a good place. I long to be there and behold my lovely Jesus, who gave His life for me, and be changed into His glorious image. Oh, for language to express the glory of the bright world to come! I thirst for the living streams that make glad the city of our God.—The Adventist Home, pp. 542, 543.

Mothers, [fathers, and other caregivers] who are attentive to their children's gestures have children who pick up words a little faster.

The way [we conduct naming experiments is] to show the child two pictures, [for example, of] a baby and a doggie. You ask, "Where's the baby?" Or "Where's the doggie?" However, if [you] change the sentence a little bit and you say, "There's a ball over there," and put [the word "ball"] in the middle instead of at the end [of the sentence], they fall apart completely. They can't get it. Fernald

We live at the level of our language.

We live at the level of our language. Whatever we can articulate we can imagine or explore. All you have to do to educate a child is leave him alone and teach him to read. The rest is brainwashing.