Native Language Quotes

• Our native language is like a second skin, so much a part of us we resist the idea that it is constantly changing, constantly being renewed.

  Casey Miller

  Ideas, Skins, Language

  Casey Miller, Kate Swift (2001). “The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing”, p.4, iUniverse

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Beauty, Communication, Writing

  "Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books)". Book by Gaston Bachelard edited by Suzanne Bachelard, 1988.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Nature, Lines, Dissecting

  "Science and Linguistics" (1946)

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have a high regard for Native languages and the pivotal role they have played in our nation's history

  Rick Renzi

  Roles, Regard, Pivotal

  8 Copy quote

• May the stars carry your sadness away, may the flowers fill your heart with beauty, may hope forever wipe away your tears. And, above all, may silence make you strong.

  Chief Dan George

  Stars, Flower, Condolences

  590 Copy quote

• No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Writing, Two, Youth

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs Corespondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson Late, President of the United States: Now First Published the Original Manuscripts”, p.347

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Bible, Pygmalion, Soul

  George Bernard Shaw (2016). “Pygmalion”, p.16, Xist Publishing

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• So, rather than becoming multicultural, rather than becoming a person of several languages, rather than becoming confident in your knowledge of the world, you become just the opposite. You end up in college having to apologize for the fact that you no longer speak your native language.

  Richard Rodriguez

  College, Opposites, Facts

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I trade both with the living and the dead, for the enrichment of our native language.

  John Dryden

  Life, Trade, Enrichment

  John Dryden (1988). “The Works of John Dryden, Volume V: Poems, 1697”, p.336, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

  Black Hawk

  Native American, Looks, American Indian

  Black Hawk, John B. Patterson (1836). “Life of Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, or Black Hawk: With an account of the late war”, p.97

  145 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe the United States should allow all foreigners in this country, provided they can speak our native language... Apache.

  Steve Martin

  Country, Believe, United States

  65 Copy quote

• We need only look to our Navajo Code Talkers during World War II to see the value that Native languages bring not only to their culture, but to the security of all Americans.

  Rick Renzi

  War, Needs, Culture

  11 Copy quote

• As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore. Or if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace?

  John Milton

  Children, Delight, Pebbles

  John Milton (1748). “The Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton: Containing Paradise Lost, ... Paradise Regain'd, ... Samson Agonistes, ... And His Poems on Several Occasions. With a Tractate of Education. In Two Volumes”, p.58

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, getting people to hear your story on social media, and then act on it, requires using a platform’s native language, paying attention to context, understanding the nuances and subtle differences that make each platform unique, and adapting your content to match.

  Gary Vaynerchuk

  Unique, Media, Differences

  Gary Vaynerchuk (2013). “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World”, p.22, Harper Collins

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Couple, Kids, Air

  4 Copy quote

• Because I cannot write my native language and have no native home anymore, and am amazed by that horrible homelessness of all French-Canadian s abroad in America.

  Jack Kerouac

  Home, Writing, America

  6 Copy quote

• An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.

  Daniel Yergin

  Past, Environmental, Important

  6 Copy quote

• I studied piano from the age of three. My grandmother taught piano. I stayed at her house during the day while my parents worked. I obviously wanted to learn to play. And so she asked if she could teach me, and my mother said don't you think she's too young. My grandmother apparently said no. So I could read music before I could read, and I really don't remember learning to read music. So for me it's like a native language. When I look at a sheet of music, it just makes sense.

  Condoleezza Rice

  Mother, Thinking, Play

  4 Copy quote

• Logic, like language, is partly a free construction and partly a means of symbolizing and harnessing in expression the existing diversities of things; and whilst some languages, given a man's constitution and habits, may seem more beautiful and convenient to him than others, it is a foolish heat in a patriot to insist that only his native language is intelligible or right.

  George Santayana

  Beautiful, Mean, Men

  9 Copy quote

• English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Simple, Data, Identity

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Roger F. Gibson (2004). “Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine”, p.93, Harvard University Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The United States, a land of immigrants from every corner of the world, has been strengthened and unified because its newcomers have historically chosen ultimately to forgo their native language for the English language. We have all benefited from the sharing of ideas, of cultures and beliefs, made possible by a common language. We have all enriched each other.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Land, Ideas, United States

  6 Copy quote

• We already knew that kids learned computer technology more easily than adults, It is as if children were waiting all these centuries for someone to invent their native language.

  Jaron Lanier

  Children, Kids, Technology

  14 Copy quote

• It was hard for me to do the show (All-American Girl) because a lot of people didn't even understand the concept of Asian-American. I was on a morning show and the host said, "Awright, Margaret, we're changing over to an ABC affiliate! So why don't you tell our viewers in your native language that we're making that transition?" So I looked at the camera and said, "Um, they're changing over to an ABC affiliate."

  Margaret Cho

  Girl, Morning, People

  "Margaret Cho: I'm the One That I Want". TV Special, August 4, 2000.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• A Swedish physicist can not discuss his work with fifty people unless he goes abroad. A Swedish economist can get opinions and instructions in his native language from thousands upon thousands of his fellow citizens.

  George Stigler

  People, Citizens, Fifty

  15 Copy quote

• Post-​wounded women know that postures of pain play into limited and outmoded conceptions of womanhood. Their hurt has a new native language spoken in several dialects: sarcastic, jaded, opaque; cool and clever. They guard against those moments when melodrama or self-​pity might split their careful seams of intellect, expose the shame of self-​absorption without self-​awareness.

  Leslie Jamison

  Sarcastic, Hurt, Clever

  10 Copy quote