Quotes About Language

Nothing of it spoken between them. They could read it on each other, their faces wrinkled pages. Words hiding in the folds of their clothes. She was made of letters then, as all of us are now. Here, in these words. Us and the city and the towns and river, and everything else, too. All that we know, and everything—everyone—we wish we knew.

It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception - a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to... inevitabilities.

that it is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen - to use an image you'll understand - it can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of... fact.

Even if I did speak Irish, I'd always be considered an outsider here, wouldn't I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won't it? The private core will always be ...hermetic, won't it?

I went on to propose that our own culture and the classical tongues made a happier conjugation [...] English, I suggested, couldn't really express us.

Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement - as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary...

Come on man, speak in English. For the benefit of the colonist? He's a decent man. Aren't they all at some level?

A-that it is not the literal past, the 'facts ' of history, that shape us, but images of that past embodied in language. B-we must never cease renewing those images; because once we do, we fossilise.

Say anything at all – I love the sound of your speech.

He then explained that he does not speak Irish. Latin? I asked. None. Greek? Not a syllable. He speaks - on his own admission - only English; and to his credit he seemed suitably verecund - James? Verecundus - humble.

Abram thought of a play on words. He said to Mikael, "It is no longer Babylon the great, the eternal city, but Babel, because there El Shaddai confused the language of all the earth. And from there El Shaddai dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Two objections are often raised when considering these passages. First, that they use phenomenal language. That is, they describe simply what the viewer observes and makes no cosmological claims beyond simply description of what one sees. We even use these terms of the sun rising and setting today and we know the earth moves around the sun. Fair enough.

Language embodies a worldview that does not often translate through the words.

I've never subscribed to the "words can never hurt me" point of view. Because if words can't hurt, then neither can they help or heal or inspire. Yes, words can brutalize. They can shame and scar. But people must be free to say them anyway. We protect free speech not because words are harmless, but because they are powerful.

Of course words are magic. That's why they call it spelling.

I believe language is infinitely malleable, a live being in our hands, which deserves our great respect and curiosity

There are certain situations in which you can't convey what you mean. Words don't always work.

She had a moment of engulfing sadness about this, about the way that even when we're living through tragedy, the language we reach for, the only language available to us, is secondhand.

The very first [Franciscan friars] to cross the Alps knew no German and lacked an interpreter. The brothers discovered that the word 'ja' usually had good results, but when they used it in reply to the question whether they were heretics, they ran into trouble. The next group had an interpreter.

I' before 'E' except after 'C', and when sounded like 'ay' as in neighbor and weigh, and on weekends and holidays, and all throughout May, and you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!

Qué puede digerir un espíritu sino palabras?

C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book.