Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.
Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.
We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.
The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.
In a sense, every form of expression is imposed upon one by social factors, one’s own language above all.
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.
Nonverbal communication is an elaborate secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.
English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.
National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.
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.
It would, of course, be hopeless to attempt to crowd into an international language all those local overtones of meaning which are so dear to the heart of the nationalist.
A standard international language should not only be simple, regular, and logical, but also rich and creative.
A firm, for instance, that does business in many countries of the world is driven to spend an enormous amount of time, labour, and money in providing for translation services.
Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.
Both French and Latin are involved with nationalistic and religious implications which could not be entirely shaken off, and so, while they seemed for a long time to have solved the international language problem up to a certain point, they did not really do so in spirit.
Comparison of statements made at different periods frequently enable us to give maximal and minimal dates to the appearance of a cultural element or to assign the time limits to a movement of population.
As a matter of fact, a national language which spreads beyond its own confines very quickly loses much of its original richness of content and is in no better case than a constructed language.