Quotes About Language

BERRI: "Yes," I remember my first word in American English was "yes," and I remember as a boy speaking quickly, effortlessly, without a trace of an accent in American English. And, just as swiftly, I remember losing my Hebrew vocabulary, as my parents spoke German at home, which I understood but never spoke.

The true power of language, its well of inspiration, for me, lie in its conscious or unconscious errors, cracks, imperfections. I am a poet, an American poet, because I have a defective ear.

Bears, it turns out, are a lot like humans. They form alliances with strangers, they make calculations about relative costs and benefits, they lay down rules and punish those who break them. They trade based on a clear system of reciprocity. They communicate using equal parts emotion, intention, and dependence on context-a combination that is essential for communication between strangers and in fact forms the basis for language.

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language.

Second, that the structure of the language one habitually uses influences the manner in which one understands his environment. The picture of the universe shifts from tongue to tongue.

all higher levels of thinking are dependent on language.

The enslavement of language in prattle is joined by the enslavement of things in folly almost as its inevitable consequence.

There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.

God's linguistic being is the word. All human language is only reflection of the word in name. Name is no closer to the word than knowledge to creation. The infinity of all human language always remains limited and analytical in nature in comparison to the absolutely unlimited and creative infinity of the divine word.

Man is the knower in the same language in which God is creator. God created him in his image, he created the knower in the image of the creator.

It is probably significant that the most widespread words in the world—borrowed into virtually every language—are the names of the four great caffeine plants: coffee, cacao, cola, and tea. [Quoting F.N. Anderson's 'The Food of China' (1988).]

Literature can appeal to the soul only through the mind. Music goes direct. Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate.

Since algebra derives from the Arabic jabara = to bind together, fractal and algebra are etymological opposites!)

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

In 'Ta Chuma,' we used folk language so that the honesty reflected in it can live in people's hearts forever.

Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.

Over the last 50 years or so, we have seen an increasing cultural diversification across the country. Accents are a reflection of society, and as society changes, so accents change.

Fashion is a language, for sure, and it is a reflection of society.

I'm lucky enough to live in London, which is a boiling pot of every kind of language and background and demographic and sexuality and gender, and yet most of what we're seeing in the cinema is not reflective of that.

I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.

Since 'The Office,' everyone has this idea that comedy is only good if it reflects the way people really speak. But that's nonsense - and it's a problem unique to comedy.

If Japanese companies don't reform drastically and implement English as their daily business language, the economy will only continue to contract.