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Language Quotes
"This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America."
35
"In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth."
30
"Everything has changed. When I was at school and was told I had better learn English, I said: What for? The English are a hell of a long way away!"
28
"The translator's task is to create, in his or her own language, the same tensions appearing in the original. That's hard!"
28
"The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself."
27
"Between 1910 and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were published in the English language alone."
19
"The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine."
18
"Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too."
12
"A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime."
12
"Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things."
11
"One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die."
11
"I think somebody who speaks the language is going to notice immediately that I'm not Russian."
10
"In the GNOME project we tried to keep the platform language independent."
9
"I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly."
8
"In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary."
8
"Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear."
8
"Jews are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt."
8
"It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn."
7
"When I was quite young, she was working in a hardware store, so I grew up knowing about hardware."
7
"Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own."
7
"A language presupposes that all the individual users possess the organs."
7
""I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?"
7
"I had said no to him and no to him and no to him and no to him and no to him and no to him about his saucy language. It had never gotten to this level until I came back."
6
"The greatest obstacle to international understanding is the barrier of language."
6
"Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem."
6
"A dog is der Hund the dog; a women is die Frau the wom[an]; a horse is das Pferd, the horse; now you put that dog in the Genitive case, & is he the same dog he was before? No sir; he is das Hundes; put him in the Dative case & what is he? Why, he is dem Hund. Now you snatch him into the accusative case & how is it with him? Why he is den Hunden? ... Read moreBut suppose he happens to be twins & you have to pluralize him, what then? Why sir they'll swap that twin dog around thro' the four cases till he'll think he's an entire International Dog Show all in his own person. I don't like dogs, but I wouldn't treat a dog like that. I wouldn't even treat a borrowed dog that way."
6
"Bunny boiler is now part of our language, and I'm proud of that."
6
"I had one companion. He was a teacher from the Ukraine who spoke English so we could communicate a bit. I learnt a few Russian words, but it was hard to concentrate."
6
"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
6
"But those two plays left me on fresh terms with language. I didn't always have to speak in my own voice."
6
"Words for mental processes are all derived from physical things."
6
"Grammar is the breathing power for the life of language."
6
"If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn."
5
"No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut."
5
"I've always enjoyed writing, I graduated with a degree in English; I've done bits of journalism."
5
"It was all completely incomprehensible to me. I was fearful of the language. You had to look up every third word."
5
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