2,489 Quotes About Language

Teachers were powerful enough to kill the indigenous languages: they are not powerful enough to bring them back to life.

There is reinforcement in such familiar back-formations as Chinee from Chinese, Portugee from Portuguese.

You must sit down to speak this language,It is so heavy you can't be polite or chatter in it.For once you have begun a sentence, the whole course of your life is laid out before you"-quoted in "The Geography of Bliss

Words are such fun!

Having words opened up a world of possibilities for Martha.

Language itself is a major resource in the naming of what cannot be named

English is only a weak second language, so that the third language--which at the moment is getting the most play, since French is what I speak, read, and hear almost 24/7--is trying to take over the no. 2 spot.

Words for completely novel concepts and technical breakthroughs are devised as soon as needed, explained with ease and absorbed with scarcely an effort by all who need them. This ability to innovate in language is crucial to every scientific advance, to our intellectual curiosity, to our originality as human individuals, because it is crucial to our ability to communicate new ideas and discoveries.

The language itself, whether you speak it or not, whether you love it or hate it, is like some bewitchment or seduction from the past, drifting across the country down the centuries, subtly affecting the nations sensibilities even when its meaning is forgotten.