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Quote by Abhijit Naskar

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Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

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Abhijit Naskar

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“Pilgrim of Language (Sonnet) How will you know if you can speak another language? If you can curse someone on impulse without memorizing, you got the language in your gut. If you can console someone in pain, the language nestles in your heart. No es necessario que hablar guapisimo, solamente necessario que hablar amable. All those pedestals of language levels, a, b, z, and what not, are elitist garbage. Chase after form, and you'll miss the soul - throw yourself into the soul, and neurons will regrow. Forget grammar, forget vocabulary, let the language seep into your bloodstream. In a world infested with medal-seeking mules, stand odd, stand ablaze, a drunken pilgrim.”

LinguisticsLanguage LearningPolyglotLanguage BarrierMultilingualismNeuroplasticityBilingualLanguage AcquisitionLanguage StudiesLanguage Proficiency
Book:Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot
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“For years, "Sorry, I don't speak French" has been the reflexive response of English-speaking Canadians to a request, a comment, or a greeting in the other official language. Part apology, part defiance, it is a declaration of the otherness. That is not me. I don't do that. The language barrier is her, at this counter, now.”

CanadaFrenchQuebecBilingual
Book:Sorry, I Don't Speak French: Confronting the Canadian Crisis That Won't Go Away
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“Something critical happens when the cadre of bilinguals learns to read imported scrolls: they gain entry into a library. I use the word "library" to refer not to a physical building but, more broadly, to the collectivity of accumulated writings. . . . humans possess an ever-increasing store of writings, the totality of which I call the library. The transformation of an oral culture into a written one means, first and foremost, the potential entry of bilinguals into a library.”

LibraryBilingualWritings
Book:The Fall of Language in the Age of English
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