#languages

One of the best known, and one of the least intelligible, facts of literary history is the lateness, in Western European Literature at any rate, of prose fiction, and the comparative absence, in the two great classical languages, of what we call by that name. ↗

— George Saintsbury

#any #best #call #classical #comparative

National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry. ↗

— Edward Sapir

#huge #inquiry #interests #languages #national

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. ↗

— Edward Sapir

#ever #languages #reality #representing #same

These examples of the lack of simplicity in English and French, all appearances to the contrary, could be multiplied almost without limit and apply to all national languages. ↗

— Edward Sapir

#appearances #apply #contrary #could #english

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages. ↗

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

#being #especially #incomprehensible #languages #method

It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable. ↗

— M. H. Abrams

#after #age #country #emerges #how

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

— Wade Davis

#extinction #half #haunting #languages #realize

Now multitudes of root words are identical in the American languages over vast areas some of them with precisely the same senses, and others with various shades of analogical meaning. ↗

— John W. Dawson

#areas #identical #languages #meaning #multitudes

What I want is a beautiful and sophisticated piece of ass that happens to be 'bi. ↗

— Scott Jonathan Nixon

#humor #languages #beauty

I start by using Chinese and many of the sounds of other languages are similar. ↗

— Andy Lau

#i #languages #many #other #similar