2,489 Quotes About Language

The strange word nymphomation, used to denote a complex mathematical procedure where numbers, rather than being added together or multiplied or whatever, were actually allowed to breed with each other to produce new numbers.

When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?

One should always cite what one does not understand at all in the language one understands the least.

P69- word is not the privilege of some few persons but the right of everyone

Ek is meer bekommerd dat daar nie meer bome vir papier is nie as wat ek bekommerd is oor die toekoms van Afrikaans.

وَسِعْتُ كِتابَ اللَهِ لَفظاً وَغايَةً وَما ضِقْتُ عَن آيٍ بِهِ وَعِظاتِفَكَيفَ أَضيقُ اليَومَ عَن وَصفِ آلَةٍ وَتَنسيقِ أَسْماءٍ لِمُختَرَعاتِ

My name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.

It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content… it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble, and from babble to confusion.

A native tongue, in my opinion, isn't the language spoken where you were born or the first language you learned; it's a language that makes you feel at home. It's a language that you don't command, but that commands you. And without it, you'd feel lost, unsure of how to express to the world everything you care enough to express.