Richard Rorty Quotes

Chimps don't have language. Humans actively instruct others about how things should be done. Chimpanzees probably pick up cultural traditions by observation.

No child is capable of speech until he has heard other human beings speak, and even two infants reared together cannot develop a language from scratch.

Well, language seems to be something that obsesses me. I'm always writing about it.

You couldn't have human society without language.

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.

Language is a social art.

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

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

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.

I'm interested in the way language is used to navigate the world around us.

If you have the language gift, you can use it as a tool.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

Language is possible due to a number of cognitive and physical characteristics that are unique to humans but none of which that are unique to language. Coming together they make language possible. But the fundamental building block of language is community.

It definitely sharpened my interest in language, the way people used language, slang words, speech patterns. There's a big advantage to being the outsider.

I definitely want to teach my daughter Spanish.

Language is the friendliest of the things from which we cannot escape.

In Australia, kids play in American accents.

Obviously no language is innate. Take any kid from any race, bring them up in any culture and they will learn the language equally quickly. So no particular language is in the genes. But what might be in the genes is the ability to acquire language.

It is no secret that the fruits of language study are in no sort of relation to the labour spent on teaching and learning them.

Evolution explains our biological evolution, but human beings are very unique creatures. As the Dobzhansky said, all animals are unique; humans are the uniquest. And that uniqueness of being human, language, art, culture, our dependency on culture for survival, comes from the combination of traditional biological evolution.

I never had to learn English, French and German because I was brought up as all three languages. I had a private French teacher before I even went to school. That helped a lot.

Henceforth, language studies were no longer directed merely towards correcting grammar.

I was always influenced by language.

One of the ways you learn about life is to associate with people.

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.