Quotes About Linguistics

The Tiberian system became more and more dominant until it completely ousted its Palestino-Tiberian counterpart around the middle of the fourteenth century.

Palmyrene and Nabataean dialects, which use an Aramaic script ... in the opinion of some experts might really be dialects of Arabic.

Sumerian substratum is obvious not only in the use of a cuneiform system of writing, but also in the weakness of Laryngeal and Pharyngeal consonants in Akkadian

According to some scholars, after 1400 BCE ... Ya'udic and Aramaic separated from ... Canaanite group.

It is noticeable that the Phoenician terms are often shared with Ugaritic.

The inscription of King Mar'alqais , found south of Damascus and dated at 328 CE, is usually said to be the first document in Arabic.

The Proto-Semitic phonological system contains perhaps twenty-nine consonantal phonemes, which despite certain modifications have been conserved with great fidelity in languages like Arabic.

The Babylonian system of accents is similar to the Tiberian, with small variations.

Biblical Hebrew is not a language in the full sense of the word but merely a 'fragment of language'.

There have been various attempts to reconstruct the vocalization and pronunciation of classical biblical Hebrew, which certainly differs considerably from that established by the Masoretes fifteen centuries later.

Most words in the Semitic languages can be completely defined in terms of root and pattern.

before the first millennium BCE one cannot speak of a contrast between Canaanite and Aramaic, but rather a group of languages with various features in common.

Various attempts have been made, with differing degrees of success, to reconstruct pre-exilic Hebrew, including its morphology.

Some of the more outstanding features of Ugaritic are its preservation of most of the Proto-Semitic consonantal phonemes.

The number of vowel phonemes varies according to the different Masoretic traditions.

It is possible to be a great novelist - that is, to render a veracious account of your times - and a bad writer - that is, an incompetent practitioner of applied linguistics.

Descriptive grammar is an attempt to give an account of what the current system is for either a society or an individual, whatever you happen to be studying.

Linguistics is a good way of defining the culture of a brand. The vocabulary used by sports and lifestyle brands - running, fitness, training, motorsports - is all about functionality, whereas the vocabulary of the luxury business - handbags, ready-to-wear - is all about the product.

The German language speaks Being, while all the others merely speak of Being.

The writer's language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.

I've always loved the word blunderbuss. I've always thought that it was a beautiful word and that it could mean several different things.

I am a stupendously fast reader and always have been. I can read in at least three languages fluently and two languages with a little bit more difficulty.

When I speak in English, my expressions become different. My attitude, too. I'm not sure why, but there really is a difference. My hands move differently when I speak English.

English is a very expressive language.