Quotes About Linguistics

Joe had always considered individual words as finite units of currency, and he believed in savings.

Inuit people had scores of words to describe snow, and that had always impressed

Our language is the reflection of ourselves. A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.

Over Basken] Hun taal knarst als een spijkerschrift

As Emerson observes, "The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry."4

Emoticon" is] one of the worst words ever--it deserves to die horribly in a head-on crash with infotainment .

Man findet Spuren aller Wissenschaften in den Sprachen, und umgekehrt vieles in den Sprachen das in den Wissenschaften nützen kann.

Um eine fremde Sprache recht gut sprechen zu lernen, und würklich in Gesellschaft zu sprechen mit dem eigentlichen Akzent des Volks, muß man nicht allein Gedächtnis und Ohr haben, sondern auch in gewissem Grad ein kleiner Geek sein.

Je mehr man in einer Sprache durch Vernunft unterscheiden lernt, desto schwerer wird einem das Sprechen derselben. Im Fertig-Sprechen ist viel Instinktmäßiges, durch Vernunft läßt es sich nicht erreichen.

No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another.

To coin new words is to arrogate to oneself legislative power in matters of language, which is rarely successful [...]

The responsibility of a dictionary is to record a language, not set its style.

A dictionary should be descriptive, not prescriptive.

The Canadian dialect of English . . . seems roughly to be the result of applying British syntax to an American vocabulary.

I'm not trying to stump anybody... it's the beauty of the language that I'm interested in.

I hear what they're saying. I ask my English tutor, 'What is this word 'tinkerer?''

I forced myself to watch Spanish TV and listen to Spanish radio all the time. I think I'm lucky because, for whatever reason, people from the Balkans seem to have a talent for learning languages.

One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow.

The British capitalize on their accent when they don't want you to know what they're saying. But if you wake them up at 4 A.M., they speak perfect English, the same as we do.

Why is it suddenly uncool to spell? That's all I want to know.

What I said was: We want everybody to learn English because we don't want - I didn't use the word 'Spanish.'

language helps create our reality.

Real thinking is possible only in the light of genuine language, no matter how limited, how primitive;

Language is a democratic enterprise.