44 Quotes About Languages-and-culture

It is critical to our union that we only have one dominant language - English.

Ah, I feel a sadness on me, Dane. That's how the Irish people say it. In their language, you can't say, "I am sad," or "I am happy". They understood what we English have long forgot. We're not our sadness. We're not our happiness or our pain but our language hypnotizes us and traps us in little labelled boxes.

On the rare occasions when Romani Gypsies meet south Asians from India or Pakistan, they are astonished to discover that they can understand many of the words these people use in their language, such as Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. There is thus a connection with eastern Europe - Romania and Hungary - but also with far-away India.

My rules for speech also disqualified “fire,” “lit,” “progressive,” “zi,” “cray,” and “Do you want to go to the Chainsmokers concert?

There is one way to understand another culture. Living it. Move into it, ask to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language. At some point understanding may come. It will always be wordless. The moment you grasp what is foreign, you will lose the urge to explain it. To explain a phenomenon is to distance yourself from it. When I start talking about Qaanaaq, to myself or to others, I again start to lose what has never been truly mine.

Literary translations construct cultural bridges and enlarge our horizons.

Languages, just like people, are worlds within themselves. They have the incredible ability to provide us with a clearer, more profound and detailed perspective of a culture and its views on life, nature, and death.

The first stupid thing human learned is to speak a language and the second stupidest thing human learned is not understanding his own language

Mother nature gave us words to use them as a bridge among each other and advance together, but the humans with their ridiculous stupidity and shallow intellect have used those very words to create walls, blinded by their barbarian tribalism masquerading as pompous ideologies.