Sandra Cisneros Quotes

The very special place that a language occupies among institutions is undeniable, but there is much more to be said-, a comparison would tend rather to bring out the differences.

Every language has its own music.

The Gaelic language itself depends very much on ear and rhythm, and when those who are thinking in Gaelic speak in English, they get the same rhythm.

I don't hate language. I have my own language, but I also enjoy the English language. Obviously, you don't read a lot of literature and not care about language.

We will never have "a" Chicano English or Spanish because of regional differences. But I think that because of our bilingual history, we'll always be speaking a special kind of English and Spanish. What we do have to do is fight for the right to use those two languages in the way that it serves us.

Enshrined in a language is the whole of a community's history and a large part of its cultural identity. The world is a mosaic of visions. To lose even one piece of this mosaic is a loss for all of us.

The idea of New Zealanders sounding like Americans is not it. You got to rhyme in your language, your accent.

I think it's about the feeling more than a language. And I think that we and every culture in the world has to keep their own language just to bring something else, something different, and show a different vision of the world, actually. And that's why I'm trying to keep my language.

One thing I wish I'd been told in school is that my language is valid.

Accents are interesting, because they very often inform the way a person moves.

Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.

The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use. The African writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience.

If someone said, I want to translate your novel into Igbo, I would say, Go ahead. But when I write in the Igbo language, I write my own dialect. I write some poetry in that dialect.

Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.

I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language.

The culture of France is unique because it's a culture that has a high priority on the arts, more than any other place in the world in our time since Greece. So as a practicing artist, if you will, this is home ground. They love us, so music, literature, art continues to be the center.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

Many of the most difficult questions concerning the role of ethnic minorities centers on language.

For my own part, I do not want the freedom of India if it means extinction of English or the disappearance of Englishmen.

Language is the chief means and index of a nation's progress.

The history of a culture can be determined by its untranslatable words.

The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life. We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, or the marketplace and of the voting booth.

You cannot sing African music in proper English

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.

Every man prays in his own language.