Daniel Everett Quotes

You couldn't have human society without language.

Language is a social art.

Humans are a social species more than any other, and in order to build a community, which for some reason humans have to do in order to live, we have to solve the communication problem. Language is the tool that was invented to solve that problem.

Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

Language was a huge expansion of that capacity to deal with information.

Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

Language turned apes like us into civil creatures.

Language. By this we build pyramids, fight battles, ordain and administer laws, shape and teach religion, and knit man to man, cultivate each other, and ourselves.

Language is basic to all of our existences in this world. We depend on it.

Human society is inconceivable unless words are to some extent bonds.

There's one thing that shows up on all of the lists of what makes us human: language. Our ability to share our thoughts and complex information with others far surpasses all the barks, squeaks and growls of our animal friends.

Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.

The way I make art - the way a lot of people make art - is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important.

As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene.

The common behavior of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language.

Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols

We are a unique ape. We have language. Other animals have systems of communication that fall far short of that. They don't have the same ability to communicate complicated conditionals and what-ifs and talk about things that are not present.

Private communication systems have been around since the beginning of human culture.

Before language, cavemen simply grunted, and then they used the club. Communication changed that. It's the mechanism that created civilization and prevents its own destruction.

The development of language is part of the development of the personality, for words are the natural means of expressing thoughts and establishing understanding between people.

I face no problem in communicating with the people of Orissa whom I meet everyday.

It's no big deal about how you get language to evolve. You cause language to evolve by saying new and intelligent things to each other.

For me, language is something that I've always loved. When I read, that's what I look for. When I write, that's what I strive for.

We must plow through the whole of language.

Language transcends us and yet we speak.