3 Quotes by Joseph H. Greenberg

The ultimate goal is a comprehensive classification of what is very likely a single language family. The implications of such a classification for the origin and history of our species would, of course, be very great.

A speaker is like a lousy auto mechanic: Every time he fixes something in the language, he screws up something else.

I heard Yiddish when my father’s family came to the house, which was as seldom as my mother could arrange it.