Noam Chomsky Quotes

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

The Hawaiian language needs to be studied globally as a language of life.

Math and science fields are not the only areas where we see the United States lagging behind. Less than 1 percent of American high school students study the critical foreign languages of Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian, combined.

It's haunting to realize that half of the languages of the world are teetering on the brink of extinction.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Intended to serve as an introduction to both the linguistic and also the practical study of spoken English.

Linguistics is very much a science. It's a human science, one of the human sciences. And it's one of the more interesting human sciences.

It is only since linguistics has become more aware of its object of study, i.e. perceives the whole extent of it, that it is evident that this science can make a contribution to a range of studies that will be of interest to almost anyone.

At the same time we overlap, because, I do linguistics, and Ben did a first degree in Linguistics at Lancaster University, so he knows some of my subject.

What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children. This tragic fate is indeed the plight of someone somewhere roughly every two weeks.

The knowledge of the ancient languages is mainly a luxury.

Given the devaluation of literature and of the study of foreign languages per se in the United States, as well as the preponderance of theory over text in graduate literature studies, creative writing programs keep literature courses populated.

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

Languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese are healthy languages. They exist in spoken, written, and signed forms, and they're used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. But most of the 6,000 or so of the world's languages aren't in such a healthy state.

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

I am the youngest of three girls. My first linguistics book was a study of 'New York Jewish conversational style'. That was my dissertation.

I would have studied English, but I really don't like to read.

Language is one component of the human cognitive capacity which happens to be fairly amenable to enquiry. So we know a good deal about that.

To start with, there's the alien accent. "Tree" is the number between two and four. "Jeintz" is the name of the New York professional football team. A "fit" is a bottle measuring seven ounces less than a quart. This exotic tongue has no relationship to any of the approved languages at the United Nations, and is only slightly less difficult to master than Urdu.

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 telling you, I could teach at a university, [George] Carlin, a whole semester. The construction and deconstruction of the words, the language, the order.

According to the United Nations' latest count, of the approximately 3,000 languages spoken in the world today, only some 78 have a literature. Of those 78, a scant five or six enjoy a truly international audience.

We must plow through the whole of language.

My linguistics is pretty theoretical.

...language is not the frosting, it's the cake.