The Book of the Heart provides a fresh perspective on the influence of the book as artifact on our language and culture. Reading this book broadens our appreciation of the relationship between things and ideas.
And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.
I was actually born and raised in Puerto Rico. I moved to the States when I was 19. I was very impressed early on by being around people who spoke my language and ate the same food and listened to the same music, dressed the same. But then you look around and, you know, you're not in Puerto Rico.
Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.
You know how Van Nuys got its name? Well, one day my little old Jewish mother was visiting me, and I took her to the top of the Hollywood Hills and had her view the valley below just at sunset. Well, mama, what would you call that? And she said, Ver nize.
Those who have reflected on the powerful influence of language on thought will perceive in how different a manner people who speak in different languages are apt to think.
In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same -- Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence.
Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who'd not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture.
I do not pretend that language is science. It isan instrument for the attainment of science.
I want to live in Kolkata; I don't want to live in Europe - I can't write there. I write in Bengali, and I need to be surrounded by the Bengali language and culture.
I speak fluent Hebrew and even dream in Hebrew when we visit there, once or twice a year.
Cultures, along with the religions that shape and nurture them, are value systems, sets of traditions and habits clustered around one or several languages, producing meaning: for the self, for the here and now, for the community, for life.
If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.
There is no word in Hebrew for religion, by the way.
There is undoubtedly much to learn about the social uses of language, for communication or for other purposes. But at present there is not much in the way of a theory of sociolinguistics, of social uses of languages, as far as I am aware.
