Noam Chomsky Quotes

One of the nice things about the United States is that, wherever you go, people speak the same language. So native New Yorkers can move to San Francisco, Houston, or Milwaukee and still understand and be understood by everyone they meet. Right? Well, not exactly. Or, as a native New Yorker might put it, 'Wrong!'

As human beings, we always have resistance against things that are different and there's always suspicion.

All communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking.

Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.

[European audiences differ from American] they talk different. The ones in Holland speak Dutch. The ones in Switzerland speak Swiss. That's the only difference.

The English love for privacy is proverbial, and has not been exaggerated. A stranger who strikes up a conversation is looked upon with suspicion - unless he happens to be an American, when his ignorance of good manners is indulged.

To me it's very obvious there are huge cultural differences between Americans and Canadians. But a lot of what we are is American.

Laistry....I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?" "Canadians.

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That's a little bit too much.

The subtle differences in language and humor that get lost in translation, for example, make it almost impossible for big companies to do something that will appeal at home and abroad.

Of course my books are translated into many languages. I have here, in my home, translations on my shelf of my books into forty-five different languages. Almost none of them I can read. I can read only the English editions. But, I know that a translation of a work of literature is like playing a violin concerto on the piano. You can do this. You can do this very successfully on one strict condition: never try to force the piano to produce the sounds of the violin. This will be grotesque. So, different musical instruments provide for different music.

Culture is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment, your education, and your decency.

It's not that I'm against nudity. I'm German, I'm very open, in Germany they lay in the park naked. It's just the principle.

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

I went to Paris in 1989 when the Americans didn't quite know what to do with me at first. Now, all those years later, it's kind of the same story. Not the same scenario, but kind of the same story.

The only part of Christian teachings which will be truly accepted by the Chinese people is Christ's injunction to be "harmless as doves" but "wise as serpents.

For a lifetime I had bathed with becoming regularity, and thought the world would come to an end unless I changed my socks every day. But in Africa I sometimes went without a bath for two months, and I went two weeks at a time without even changing my socks. Oddly enough, it didn't seem to make much difference.

I have traveled more than anyone else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent.

When I'm just walking around, I swap between the British and the American, and when I'm with my family I'm with my Nigerian accent.

I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.

The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.

Everyone is used to speaking a slightly different "language" with their parents than with their peers, because spoken language changes every generation - like they say, the past is a foreign country - but I think this is intensified for children whose parents also grew up in a geographically foreign country.

Intellect doesn't translate across cultures; intuition does.

I was a student in the Department of Anthropology. At that time, they were teaching that there was absolutely no difference between anybody. They may be teaching that still.

Why is she afraid?" he asked. "She's not Anjin-san. Just a little nervous. Please excuse her. She's never seen a foreigner close to before." "Tell her when the moon's full, barbarians sprout horns and fire comes out of our mouths like dragons.