183 Quotes About Linguistics

God could have launched this new era of history [the birth of Christianity] in an infinite number of ways, but God chose a linguistic miracle.

Psycholinguists argue about whether language reflects our perception of reality or helps create them. I am in the latter camp. Take the names we give the animals we eat. The Patagonian toothfish is a prehistoric-looking creature with teeth like needles and bulging yellowish eyes that lives in deep waters off the coast of South America. It did not catch on with sophisticated foodies until an enterprising Los Angeles importer renamed it the considerably more palatable "Chilean sea bass.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to compute it.

when a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world.

Children's minds need not innately embody language structures, if languages embody the predispositions of children's minds!

To discuss endlessly what silly people mean when they say silly things may be amusing but can hardly be important.

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

نجد أن الفن الحداثي يزداد ابهاما وتعقيدا حتى اصبح فنا نخبويا رغم ثورته على البرجوازية

Language disguises thought.