Sayed Kashua Quotes

When California passes a law saying that English is the official language, it can only mean one thing: That English is no longer the official language.

People are always saying, English, English, English rose, and I just feel so completely different.

Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.

The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one's control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one's free will.

I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad that I cannot write in my native Ilokano. History demanded this; if it isn't English I am using now, I would most probably be writing in Spanish like Rizal, or even German or Japanese.

So what's really behind the 'English Only' Movement? Fear. Fear of being taken over and one day they will have to learn something different. Heaven forbid they would have to learn something new.

All of us in Quebec - and I mean all of us - have allowed language to become a preoccupation that works to the disadvantage of all of us - and I mean all of us.

Under the Assads, Kurds were forbidden from learning their own language at school, or even from speaking it in the military. The result is a generation of Syrian Kurds, many now in late middle age, who can't write their own language.

You know, even growing up going to school, I had teachers that were against bilingual teaching. I never understood that. My parents always had me speak Spanish first knowing I was going to speak English in school.

In school in Lebanon, we were not allowed to speak Arabic during breaks - it had to be French or English.

I am not anti-English, and I never was.

Speaking Spanish isn't a benefit in Hollywood.

Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.

Every [political] contest is one of French and English in the outset, or becomes so ere it has run its course.

I'm against the idea of force-feeding all of Canada on two languages.

It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual, but it is a curse for a society to be bilingual… A society must be able to talk amongst itself.

Bilingualism is a great asset for any individual, but it has perilous consequences for a nation.

I've found that one's language abilities, especially for Korean kids like me, get frozen at the age you immigrated. So I've always associated Korea with being a child and being infantilized through my inability to speak.

I know Asian actors out there won't even audition for a role that have an accent. But for me, I was the kid with an accent. I still have an accent to some degree.

While I was doing Hindi, people there laughed at me because I couldn't speak Hindi and English properly.

When I was young we weren't even allowed to speak our own languages in school. They called it 'vernacular,' as if only English was the real tongue.

When an American person hears you speak a different language, you're automatically the bad guy.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

I didn't want to read French or write it; it was like a boycott, a rejection.

They made me use an accent, which I wasn't thrilled about because a lot of us, obviously, don't have them.