Quotes About Language

their relationship had a spiritual dimension. Think about that for a moment. Language is power. Prentiss was like a spiritual guide. She gave Jennie power—and Jennie used it.

Nobody knows what language is. It isn't just speech, that's for sure. But try to explain that to some of these reductionist structural linguists.

She learned her first two signs five weeks later, on—let's see here—June 4, 1967. They were hug and me. On June 6, she spontaneously signed Hug me Jennie to Mrs. Archibald, her surrogate mother. Mrs. Archibald was under the impression that Jennie's first sign had been directed at her. I didn't correct that misapprehension. Why? I should suppose the reason's obvious.

She created a new world for herself. It blew my mind to see this animal acquire language. And then literally reshape her world with it.

Jennie taught me just how worthless that is. Being smart. Jennie wasn't smart by human standards, but she had a set of values. Real values. You see, for Jennie, freedom was the highest value. Language gave Jennie freedom. Although I didn't know it at the time, she taught me the real meaning of the word "freedom," not the bullshit meaning you get from politicians and priests.

Flatbush accent.

Charles backed down. He is reputed to have said, Capon, Capon, vous êtes un mauvais chapon. 'Capon, Capon, you are one evil chicken.' " "Chicken jokes are quite prevalent in the family," the countess said. The count said, "We eat capons at Christmas. It's a little cannibalistic.

Queens, by the accent.

This was a big divergence from the way human children learn language, and that itself was interesting.

Did you know that research on gorillas has shown that they communicate using gestures? Now listen to this. An ASL-like language may very well have preceded spoken language in human development. A kind of language with gestures and vocalizations. Gradually the vocalizations took over from the gestures, because it's so much more convenient to speak than gesture.

I believe that we humans, in teaching chimpanzees and gorillas ASL, stumbled upon a natural communication system already in use. We just enhanced it. This is just my opinion and I wouldn't dare put it in a paper.

Our modes of speech are bred in the bone, madam. We cannot escape them any more than we can the colour of our eyes.

Jennie quickly began to use language to mislead us. Or to manage a situation more to her liking.

Then there was that absurd syntax business again. No language without syntax. Well, what about Latin! These assholes didn't even know Latin! Where did these guys go to school?

Anyway, these conclusions came from people who had never spent any time with chimpanzees. You can't tell anything from a two-hour videotape. I spent five years with five chimpanzees. There are so many modes of communication between human and chimp that can't be quantified. Body language. Vehemence and speed of gesture, facial expression. You had to be there with Jennie to understand the depth of communication. With our enemies out there, and a Senator against us, we got hammered.

The reason they interrogated Amanda all night was to break her. Not get the truth, not get answers, not make Perugia safer, but to break her so that she would say what they wanted her to say. Amanda Knox was interrogated for eight hours. Overnight. She was denied food and water. She was denied the use of a bathroom. In a police station. In a foreign country. In a foreign language. By a dozen different officers. Without being allowed a lawyer.

Someone is writing a poem. Words are being set down in a force field. It's as if the words themselves have magnetic charges; they veer together or in polarity, they swerve against each other.

Listen to a woman groping for language in which to express what is on her mind, sensing the terms of academic discourse are not her language, trying to cut down her thought to the dimensions of a discourse not intended for her (for it is not fitting that a woman speak in public) or reading her paper aloud at breakneck speed, throwing her words away, deprecating her own work by a reflexive prejudgment: I do not deserve to take up time and space.

Finally: there is always that in poetry which will not be grasped, which cannot be described, which survives our ardent attention, our critical theories, our classrooms, our late-night arguments. There is always (I am quoting the poet/translator Américo Ferrari) "an unspeakable where, perhaps, the nucleus of the living relation between the poem and the world resides.

Of course, like the consciousness behind it, behind any art, a poem can be deep or shallow, visionary or glib, prescient or stuck in an already lagging trendiness. What's pushing the grammar and syntax, the sounds, the images—is it the constriction of literalism, fundamentalism, professionalism—a stunted language? Or is it the great muscle of metaphor, drawing strength from resemblance in difference? The great muscle of the unconstricted throat?

I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language guessing at some words while others keep you reading and I want to know which words they are.

because even the alphabet is precious.

Myth isn't about factual or historical truth, but about a deeper truth. In ancient times, people saw myth in a very different light—as a vehicle that can transmit and carry a subtlety and richness of experience that simply cannot be conveyed by linear, conceptual forms of language.

don't know what it is. They'll forget that that thing flying through the sky is beyond all words, that it's an expression of the immensity of life. It's actually an extraordinary and wondrous thing that flies through the sky. But as soon as we name it, we think we know what it is. We see "bird," and we almost discount it.