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Linguistics Quotes

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Linguistics Quotes

“Oh, but to reach silence, what a huge effort of voice. My voice is the way I go seek reality; reality prior to my language exists as an unthinkable thought, but I was and am fatefully impelled to have to know what thought thinks. Reality precedes the voice that seeks it, but like the earth precedes the tree, but like the world precedes the man, but like the sea precedes the view of the sea, life precedes love, bodily matter precedes the body, and one day in its turn language shall have preceded possession of silence. - Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.”

PhilosophyExistentialismLinguisticsIdentity Crisis
Author:Clarice Lispector
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“When we say ‘housing for all’ and the government responds with ‘the homeless are being temporarily housed in hotels to avoid the spread of the virus’, they are building a linguistic structure that defines the realm of the possible, that implicitly tells us to want less, to expect that total reconfiguration is out of the question. Like a poorly designed building, linguistic structures affect how we think, breathe, move and act. The mould sticks to our skin. We are familiar with a particular kind of linguistic structure: the preservation of a system of organisation that places capital before all else. This system ties our hands and feet together.”

ImaginationCapitalismHousingHomelessnessLinguistics
Book:Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
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“The word “religion” (Latin “religio”) is a very old term and, in fact, was already used in Roman times and was understood to portray a similar meaning by many other civilizations. For example, the Roman orator Cicero (106-43 BC) understood this term to mean “respect towards something of great importance”, somewhat similar to an obligation which man should reserve for gods. The Greek term “eusebeia” (reverence or fear of God) has a comparable meaning, whilst in the Arab and Persian world the same meaning is portrayed through the term “din”. The term “dharma” (Sanskrit) or “dhamma” (Pali), can translate into “that which mankind must embrace”. If one were to travel to China the term used would be “chiao” and “kyo” in Japan. This shows that the need for religion is not only culturally bound, but an inbuilt necessity which can be found in each human being throughout the ages.”

PhilosophyWisdomReligionHumanityCultureSpiritualityHistoryAnthropologyLinguisticsComparative Religion
Book:The Other Side of the Judeo-Christian History
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“In the absence of a formally agreed, worldwide dictionary definition of 'Quotography' (in 2016), here are my two cents worth: 'Quotography is the art of pairing unique quotations with complementary images in order to express thought-provoking ideas, challenging concepts, profound sentiments'.”

InspirationalInspirationInspirational QuotesQuotesLanguageCreationExpressionQuoteWordsDefinitionsDefinedMeaningDescriptionQuotationsSayingsDefiningDictionaryProverbsWords To Live ByLinguisticsEpigramsDefinitionWords Have PowerLanguagesNew WordsLanguages And CultureWords To Inspire YouMeaningsQuotable QuotesQuotableWords To PonderCreating New ThingsCreationsExpression QuotesDescriptionsDictionary QuotesQuipsDictionary MeaningsMeanings Of ThingsNew WordDefined QuoteDefined QuotesDictionary DefinitionsQuotographyQuotology
Book:Lines & Lenses
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“Of an inanimate being, like a table, we say “What is it?” And we answer Dopwen yewe. Table it is. But of apple, we must say, “Who is that being?” And reply Mshimin yawe. Apple that being is. Yawe— the animate to be. I am, you are, s/he is. To speak of those possessed with life and spirit we must say yawe. By what linguistic confluence do Yahweh of the Old Testament and yawe of the New World both fall from the mouths of the reverent Isn’t this just what it means, to be, to have the breath of life within, to be the offspring of creation The language reminds us, in every sentence, of our kinship with all of the animate world.”

LifeRespectNative AmericanVerbsLinguisticsYahwehLanuguage
Book:Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
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“Selbstverständlich kann diese Oeuvre wie jede andere Konklusion an seinem Fundament, den einzelnen Morphemen und in allerlei Hinsicht der Sprache attackiert werden. Sobald wir ein Argument als valide deklarieren, kann die Rechtmäßigkeit nur noch durch die Falschheit der Prämissen kollabieren. Rechtmäßigkeit kann immer durch eine Divergenz im Verständnis einzelner Definitionen angezweifelt werden. Die Definitionen, die wir bestimmten Schlüsselwörter geben, machen meist den Unterschied zwischen verschiedenen Weltanschauungen.”

PhilosophyTruthLife PhilosophyIntellectualLogicLinguisticsLogical Thinking
Book:Telosismus: Genesis und Vollendung des Menschen
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“I am the laboratory (Sonnet 2676) Your dictionaries don't matter, your philosophies don't matter, your scriptures don't matter, your constitutions don't matter, your courts, crowns, vaticans, and washingtons don't matter - bring your brain, heart and backbone, but leave everything else at the door, your dictionary, your scripture, your constitution, your philosophy, or do not enter, there'll be no point. Truth is a garden, not a factory, which means dead leaves must fall, new branches must be tendered to. I am the laboratory, I am the court room, I am the operating theatre, I am the decontamination zone.”

AwarenessHumanismOnenessDogmaNondualityAdvaitaMulticulturalismTranscendenceIndoctrinationLinguistics
Book:With Love From A Blue Rock
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“If metaphors require an underlying cultural framework, then the heiroglyphhic language of the gods cannot be a merely primitive stage of human consciousness: it needs the presence of both the symbolic language of heroes and the epistolary language of me as its starting point. Thus Vico is not speaking of a linear development from a metaphorical language to a more conventional language, but of a continual, cyclical activity. The language of the gods is a heap of unrelated synedoches and metonymies…”

LanguageMetaphorSymbolsHeroesGodsLinguisticsSignsSemiotics
Book:Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language
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“Lydia's English is a help, but there are many different languages in el norte. There are codes Lydia hasn't yet learned to decipher, subtle differences between words that mean almost, but not quite the same thing: migrant, immigrant, illegal alien. She learns that there are flags that people use here, and those flags may be a warning or a welcome. She is learning.”

LanguageLearningIntegratingLinguisticsLanguage LearningCultural DifferencesAcculturation
Book:American Dirt
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“We are told that in translation there is no such thing as equivalence. Many times the translator reaches a fork in the translating road where they must make a choice in the interpretation of a word. And each time they make one of these choices, they are taken further from the truth. But what we aren’t told is that this isn’t a shortcoming of translation; it’s a shortcoming of language itself. As soon as we try to put reality into words, we limit it. Words are not reality, they are the cause of reality, and thus reality is always more. Writers aren't alchemists who transmute words into the aurous essence of the human experience. No, they are glassmakers. They create a work of art that enables us to see inside to help us understand. And if they are really good, we can see our own reflections staring back at us.”

WritingArtRealityTruthReadingSpeakLanguageEqualReflectionGoldWordsLimitationExplanationChoiceWritersInterpretationHelpPoetsReadHuman ExperienceArtistsWriteChooseAuthorsUnderstandWriting QuotesKamandKojouriKamand KojouriSimplifyTalkMirrorArtworkRoadLinguisticsTranslationInterpreterLimitRevealParaphraseGlassWriter QuotesComprehendChoseExplainToldInterpretTranslation QuotesTranslatingShortcomingTranslatorAlchemistsEquivalentForkPortrayTransmuteEquivalenceInterpretation QuotesAurousGlassmakerRestate
Author:Kamand Kojouri
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“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.”

NamesLanguageFoodLinguisticsFoodieEating Animals
Book:Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals
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“history teaches us that wars are not fought with arms alone. In times of conflict and occupation, language can be a powerful weapon, where refusing the occupier’s words becomes an act of honor, dignity, and defiance. In this sense, every word spoken in a native language goes beyond the boundaries of the conventional concept of speech to become an instrument of boycott and resistance, a pursuit of self-expression, liberation, and survival, and a declaration of self-determination, freedom, and independence.”

WarLanguageWisdom QuotesLinguisticsWar QuotesPower Of LanguageResistance QuotesLanguage QuotesEnglish QuotesWeapon Quotes
Author:Mouloud Benzadi
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“No algorithm exists for the metaphor, nor can a metaphor be produced by means of a computer’s precise instructions, no matter what the volume of organized information to be fed in. The success of a metaphor is a function of the sociocultural format of the interpreting subjects; encyclopedia. In this perspective, metaphors are produced solely on the basis of a rich cultural framework, on the basis, that is, of a universe of content that is already organized into networks of interpretation, which decide semiotically) the identities and differences of properties.”

CultureLanguageMetaphorInterpretationLinguisticsAlgorithmSemioticsNetworks
Book:Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language
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“A metaphor is not merely a linguistic expression (a form of words) used for artistic or rhetorical purposes; instead, it is a process of human understanding by which we achieve meaningful experience that we can make sense of. A metaphor, in this "experiential" sense, is a process by which we understand and structure one domain of experience in terms of another domain of a different kind.”

PhilosophyLanguageMetaphorMeaningLinguistics
Book:The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason
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“Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.”

LanguageHumourLinguisticsA Bit Of Fry And Laurie
Author:Stephen Fry
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“Now, the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth, a sorrowin’ song, with the words all wrong, in the many tongues of Earth. The things a woman wants to say, the tales she longs to tell . . . they take all day in the tongues of Earth, and half of the night as well. So nobody listens to what a woman says, except the men of power who sit and listen right willingly, at a hundred dollars an hour . . . sayin’ “Who on Earth would want to talk about such foolish things?” Oh, the tongues of Earth don’t lend themselves to the songs a woman sings! There’s a whole lot more to a womansong, a whole lot more to learn; but the words aren’t there in the tongues of Earth, and there’s noplace else to turn. . . . So the woman they talk, and the men they laugh, and there’s little a woman can say, but a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, and a hurt that won’t go away. The women go workin’ the manly tongues, in the craft of makin’ do, but the women that stammer, they’re everywhere, and the wellspoken ones are few. . . . ’Cause the only song a woman knows is the song she learns at birth; a sorrowin’ song with the words all wrong, in the manly tongues of Earth. (a 20th century ballad, set to an even older tune called “House of the Rising Sun”; this later form was known simply as “Sorrowin’ Song, With the Words All Wrong”)”

LanguageWomenFeminismInequalityLinguistics
Book:Native Tongue
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“Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humour and serious play. It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method, one I would like to see more honoured within socialist-feminism.”

FeminismIronyLinguisticsEpistemologyOntologyPolitcs
Book:Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature
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“Art of Linguistics (Sonnet 1223) No language speaks of freedom better than spanish, No language speaks of love better than turkish, No language speaks of oneness better than sanskrit, No language interprets better than our good ol' english. No language speaks to computers better than code, No language speaks of matter better than physics. No language speaks of mind better than neurology, No language speaks pattern better than mathematics. No language speaks of thought better than philosophy, No language speaks of emotion better than poetry. No language speaks of justice better than sociology, No language speaks of behavior better than psychology. Purpose of language is communication not argumentation, If it doesn't bridge the cliffs it all brings but extinction.”

LanguagePsychologyCommunicationSocial JusticeAdvaitaNeuroscienceLinguisticsViva La LibertadLanguages And CultureLanguage Studies
Book:Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect
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“Well, I think that this is just a question for linguists and lexicographers. Although, as previously mentioned, a person needs to sense another person and needs to think about the person to behave in a certain way, which requires conscious thought, is it possible for a programmed reaction, or a programmed way of behaving, to be defined as behavior? Let me elaborate: if a normal human being is slapped in the face, the person would sense the slap and reflexively think of things such as how painful, unexpected, or annoying it was. Then, the person would say “ow” or maybe try to slap the person back. However, a p-zombie would react by saying “ow,” or by slapping the person back, but it is not doing any of this out of its own will, because without conscious thought, it doesn’t have a will. Something in the p-zombie could cause it to react without having to think, like with a robot; if I were to say “hi” to a robot, it could be programmed to say “hi” back, but it would only do it because it was programmed to do it, not because it senses that a person is saying “hi” and thinks of it as a friendly greeting. If it is possible for a being to be programmed like that, it could do such things, but determining whether or not actions like this are forms of behavior still depends on how society defines behavior. When a person behaves a certain way, he/she provides a reaction for a person. When a robot says “hi” to a person who just said “hi”, it is reacting to that person, so this could be viewed as a behavior, but the dictionary definition is a bit ambiguous, because it doesn’t specify whether the way one acts has to be conscious (like with a normal human being) or unconscious (like with a robot), so linguists and lexicographers need to establish that parameter to define behavior. If linguists and lexicographers were to say that behavior, by definition, does not have to be conscious, then a p-zombie could be conceivable.”

ConsciousnessPsychologyBehaviorAmbiguityLinguisticsP Zombie
Book:The Reformation
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“BUNAHAN When the last speaker of Boro falls silent, who will notice the first-grown feather of a bird’s wing? (gansuthi) or feel how far pretending to love (onsay) is from loving for the last time (onsra)? Quiet and uneasy, in an unfamiliar place (asusu) no one sees her, or listens; there is less of her than there was. The last speaker feels Boro’s world fall apart, knowledge unravels: healing plants go unseen; the bodies of animals are unreadable. With a last thought, onguboy (to love it all, from the heart), she leaves fragments of the world she held in place. We touch their husks, about to speak and about not to speak (bunhan, bunahan); awash in loss, incomplete. Note: The italicized words are from Boro, an endangered language still spoken in parts of northern India. For more on this story, see Mark Abley’s Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages.”

PoetryLanguageWonderPoetPoemAntiquityLinguisticsLanguages And CulturesLost Languages
Author:Laurelyn Whitt
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“Sonnet of Languages Turkish is the language of love, Spanish is the language of revolution. Swedish is the language of resilience, English is the language of translation. Portuguese is the language of adventure, German is the language of discipline. French is the language of passion, Italian is the language of cuisine. With over 7000 languages in the world, Handful of tongues fall short in a sonnet. But you can rest assured of one thing, Every language does something the very best. Each language is profoundly unique in its own way. When they come together, they light the human way.”

Diversity And InclusionLinguisticsCultural IntegrationLanguage LearningLanguages And CultureMulticultural PoetLanguage StudiesLinguistic DiversityPolyglot PoetryLanguages Psychology
Book:Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans
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