Russell Hoban Quotes

Speaking, writing, and signing are the three ways in which a language lives and breathes. They are the three mediums through which a language is passed on from one generation to the next.

In general, every country has the language it deserves.

As our language wanes and dies, the golden legends of the far-off centuries fade and pass away. No one sees their influence upon culture; no one sees their educational power.

The knowledge of the ancient languages is mainly a luxury.

I have a high regard for Native languages and the pivotal role they have played in our nation's history.

Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides.

Multilingualism in our nation extends back to several millennia. This multilingualism is an asset, a heritage we have inherited, and is, in fact, a resource we deeply cherish.

In Paul Friedrich's book Proto-Indo-European Trees he identifies the "semantic primitives" of the Indo-European tribe of languages through a group of words that have not changed much through twelve thousand years - and those are tree names: especially birch, willow, adler, elm, ash, apple and beech (bher, wyt, alysos, ulmo, os, abul, bhago). Seed syllables, bija, of the life of the west.

Language is the archives of history.

I tweeted once, and I still stick to this, that I would love to marry a Croatian girl. I want my children to speak Croatian first, and for them to do that, we need someone who speaks very good Croatian.

English is my language because of the history, and what I try to do - and I did that in 'Carpentaria' in particular - is to write in the way we tell stories and in the voice of our own people and our own way of speaking.

A nation without a language is a nation without a heart.

The Sami, as an indigenous people, as well as the Roma and other groups, have the right to maintain and develop their own language and culture.

The day a race ceases to express its thought and its sentiments in that language which has grown with it and which took form with its ethnic temperament, it is lost as a race. The preservation of its language is absolutely necessary to the preservation of the race, of its genius, its character and it's temperament.

It is asked of me that I give my first speech in this house in a language [English] other than my mother tongue [French.] …. Even if I knew English as intimately as I knew French, I would still give my first speech in the language of my French Canadian compatriots

We of French origin have the sentiment of our own individuality. We want to hand down to our children the language we received from our forefathers.

History is simply man’s desperate bid to give substance to his most visionary dreams.

Our Constitution has affirmed that Gaelic is the national language. Yet there is scarcely one person in a thousand throughout Ireland who cannot speak English and scarcely one in ten who can speak Irish easily.

The Internet offers endangered languages a chance to have a public voice in a way that would not have been possible before.

Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs in society; the old language allows you to keep your sense of 'who you are.' It preserves your identity. With two languages, you have the best of both worlds.

Most of my family doesn't speak English. It's so important for the baby. He's going to know all his American roots, but he also needs to know about his Brazilian side.

English, for me, is an acquired language. I started with English at the age of 10. At the time, it was my third language.

I always speak Welsh to my family.

Melted down, silver is worth a little more than four dollars an ounce. But carved, inlaid, and engraved, and identified with a particular year, it becomes the direct reflection, often the literal record, of human history, our movement through time.

Sankhachil' did not have a script, to begin with. It was just a thought.