22 Quotes by Guy Deutscher

Language is mankind's greatest inventiom… that it was never invented.

Really, it is unfair to say that English spelling is not an accurate rendering of speech. It is – it's only that it renders the speech of the 16th century.

When one hears about acts of extraordinary bravery in combat, it is usually a sign that the battle has not been going terribly well. For when wars unfold according to plan and one's own side is winning, acts of exceptional individual heroism are rarely called for. Bravery is required mostly by the desperate side.

So if you, O subsequent ones, ever deign to look down at us from your summit of effortless superiority, remember that you have only scaled it on the back of our efforts. For it is thankless to grope in the dark and tempting to rest until the light of understanding shines upon us. But if we are led into this temptation, your kingdom will never come.

People can cope with the chaos of change over the years (that is, with 'diachronic variation'), simply because they can cope with the even greater chaos of synchronic variation, the diversity at any one point in time.

And if Germans do have systematic minds, this is just as likely to be because their exceedingly erratic mother tongue has exhausted their brains' capacity to cope with any further irregularity

The German starts by claiming: 'German is off course ze best language. It is ze language off logik and philosophy, and can commuicate viz great clarity and precision even ze most complex ideas.' 'Boeff,' shrugs the Frenchman, 'but French, French, it ees ze language of lurve! In French, we can convey all ze subtletees of romance weez elegance and flair.

Pek çok dilde kırmızı rengin adı "kan" kelimesinden türemiştir. İlginçtir, bu dilsel bağlantı kuşaklar boyunca Kitabı Mukaddes tefsircilerinin kafasını yormuştur, çünkü söz konusu olan insanlığın atasının adıdır. Kitabı Mukaddes etmiolojisine göre Adem adını yapıldığı adamah denen kırmızı çamurdan alır. Ama adamah kelimesi de Sami kökenli adam, yani "kırmızı" kelimesinden gelir ve bu kelimenin de kökeninde dam yani "kan kelimesi vardır.

This is a very tricky question, because ultimately no one knows where the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans was, and when they started spreading into Europe and Asia,