Dialect Quotes

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Quotes About Dialect

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All nationalistic distinctions - all claims to be better than somebody else because you have a different-shaped skull or speak a different dialect - are entirely spurious, but they are important so long as people believe in them. ~ George Orwell
Dialect quotes by George Orwell
There aren't a lot of humans who speak more than one dialect of Forshan. I know all four of the major ones.'

'Impressive,' Duvall Said.

'I'm good with my tongue,' Dahl said.

'Now who's being forward?' Duvall asked. ~ John Scalzi
Dialect quotes by John Scalzi
When Maharajji came out you never knew what to expect. He could do the same thing a week in a row until you'd think, "Well, he'll come out at 8:00." Then he might not come out all day, or he might just go into another room and close the door and be in there for two days. You had to learn to expect the unexpected. One day he came out and all he said all day long was "Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan," repeating these words to himself like a mantra. Days went by like this and somebody finally said, "Maharajji, what are you saying?" And it turned out to be an old Behari dialect, and all it meant was "Too big, too big, too little, too little." When he was finally asked why he was saying this, he said, "Oh, all you people, you all live in Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan; you live in the world of judgement. It's always too big or too little. ~ Ram Dass
Dialect quotes by Ram Dass
Love?
Yes.
Gideon chuckled.
Why did you say yes like that?
Oh, I thought you were asking me a question.
I see.
Then he truly did see what she meant, and his heart flipped over in his chest.
Darling?
Gideon smiled at the warmth the endearment flooded him with.
Yes, Neliss?
Oh, nothing. Just fulfilling my end of the deal.
The deal?
Yes. You made me a deal.
You lost me, he sighed.
Legna lifted her head, propped an elbow up against the pillow of his chest, and settled her chin in her palm so she could look down at him.
"You said that I would get something very special if I called you that."
"Did I?" he asked, his eyes brightening with speculation as he thought back on it. "Actually, I think you have that confused with the deal about saying my name."
"I like your name," she said with a smile. "I always thought mine was awful snobbish. But yours has me beat hands down."
"My name is one of the finest and oldest names in all of our history."
"That's only because you have lived to be such an older tosser."
"Tosser?"
"British vernacular, luv."
"What are you, my dialect coach all of a sudden? Is this your idea of postcoital pillow talk?"
Legna giggled, apologizing with a clinging kiss on his lips. It clearly calmed him, making him smile in a very cat-versus-canary way.
"Is there something you would prefer I say?" she asked compliantly.
"That yes a few sentences ba ~ Jacquelyn Frank
Dialect quotes by Jacquelyn Frank
This is an exception of history, Romania. These are a group of Romans that more than 2000 years ago remained here. They have been contaminated from many different cultures, but the basic language is still the Vulgar Latin that was probably spoken 2000 years ago in Rome, with some integration from the Turkish and Slavic languages. The structure is Latin and they still use some expressions that we use in our dialect in Rome. This was impressive for me and helped me a lot to stay here. ~ Anonymous
Dialect quotes by Anonymous
One of the coolest ways to start building a character is the way he moves his mouth, what part of the mouth he puts his words into, how he expresses himself, and there's a certain flavor you get with a dialect. ~ Cory Michael Smith
Dialect quotes by Cory Michael Smith
Finally a soldier marched in and, holding his right hand to his chest, said, "Salaam aleikum. Chetor hastid? Jan-e-shoma jur ast? Khub hastid? Sahat-e-shoma khub ast? Be khair hastid? Jur hastid? Khane kheirat ast? Zinde bashi."
Which in Dari, the Afghan dialect of Persian, means, "Peace be with you. How are you? Is your soul healthy? Are you well? Are you well? Are you healthy? Are you fine? Is your household flourishing? Long life to you." Or: "Hello. ~ Rory Stewart
Dialect quotes by Rory Stewart
What is surprising, even deeply disturbing, is the way that many individuals who consider themselves democratic, even-handed, rational, and free of prejudice, hold on tenaciously to a standard language ideology which attempts to justify restriction of individuality and rejection of the Other ~ Rosina Lippi-Green
Dialect quotes by Rosina Lippi-Green
Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts as the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite. ~ E.B. White
Dialect quotes by E.B. White
I hate dialect. It gets in the way. If there is a need for dialect, you can render it quite easily by reproducing the rythm of that form of speech. Then you don't need to bother with silly spellings ~ Diana Wynne Jones
Dialect quotes by Diana Wynne Jones
When using dialect, use it lightly. A dialect word here and there is enough. All you want to do is suggest. Never let it call attention to itself. ~ Flannery O'Connor
Dialect quotes by Flannery O'Connor
When I speak in Christian terms or Buddhist terms I'm simply selecting for the moment a dialect. Christian words for me represent the comforting vocabulary of the place I came from hometown voices saying more than the language itself can convey about how welcome and safe I am what the expectations are and where to find food. Buddhist words come from another dialect from the people over the mountain. I've become pretty fluent in Buddhist it helps me to see my home country differently but it will never be speech I can feel completely at home in. ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley
Dialect quotes by Mary Rose O'Reilley
The Canadian dialect of English ... seems roughly to be the result of applying British syntax to an American vocabulary. ~ Lister Sinclair
Dialect quotes by Lister Sinclair
I couldn't know about my culture, my history, without learning the language, so I started learning Arabic - reading, writing. I used to speak Arabic before that, but Tunisian Arabic dialect. Step by step, I discovered calligraphy. I painted before and I just brought the calligraphy into my artwork. That's how everything started. The funny thing is the fact that going back to my roots made me feel French. ~ EL Seed
Dialect quotes by EL Seed
When dealing with the excessively rich and privileged, you've got your two basic approaches. One is to go in hard and deliberately working class. A regional accent is always a plus in this. Seawoll has been known to deploy a Mancunian dialect so impenetrable that members of Oasis would have needed subtitles, and graduate entries with double firsts from Oxford practise a credible Estuary in the mirror and drop their glottals with gay abandon when necessary.

That approach only works if the subject suffers from residual middle-class guilt – unfortunately the properly posh, the nouveau riche and senior legal professionals are rarely prey to such weaknesses. For them you have to go in obliquely and with maximum Downton Abbey.

Fortunately for us we have just the man. ~ Ben Aaronovitch
Dialect quotes by Ben Aaronovitch
From time to time, her dialogue will be rendered in ordinary English, which Louise does not speak. To do full justice to her speech would require a ladder of footnotes and glosses, a tic of apostrophes (aphaeresis, hyphaeresis, apocope), and a Louise-ese/English dictionary of phonetic spellings. ~ Fran Ross
Dialect quotes by Fran Ross
A frightful dialect for the stupid, the pedant and dullard sort. ~ Thomas Carlyle
Dialect quotes by Thomas Carlyle
I pity the fellow who has to create a dialect or paraphrase the dictionary to get laughs. I can't spell, but I have never stooped to spell cat with a 'k' to get at your funny bone. I love a drink, but I never encouraged drunkenness by harping on its alleged funny side. ~ Mark Twain
Dialect quotes by Mark Twain
The American has no language, he has a dialect, slang, provincialism, accent and so forth ~ Rudyard Kipling
Dialect quotes by Rudyard Kipling
...the prose tradition had died two centuries before and the recreation of a full canon of all-purpose Scots was beyond even Scott's skill, nor did he attempt it, except, perhaps in the magnificent Wandering Willie's Tale. He took the only course open to him, of writing his narrative in English and using Scots only for those who, given their social class, would still be speaking it: daft Davie Gellatley in Waverley, the gypsies and Dandie Dinmont in Guy Mannering, the Headriggs in Old Mortality, Edie Ochiltree and the fisher-folk of Musselcrag in The Antiquary, Andrew Fairservice in Rob Roy, the Deanses in The Heart of Midlothian, Meg Dods in St. Ronan's Well, and so on.

The procedure gave reality to the Scots characters whose ways and ethos it was Scott's main purpose to portray, and the author in his best English, which lumbered along rather badly at times, did little more than lay out the setting for the action and act as impressario for the characters as they played their roles...

...Scott's felicity in conveying character and action through their Scots speech inspired his imitators for the next hundred years - Susan Ferrier, Hogg, Macdonald, Stevenson, Barrie, Crockett, Alexander, George Douglas, and John Buchan. The tradition of narrative in standard English and dialogue in various degrees of dialect has been the usual procedure since. ~ David Murison
Dialect quotes by David Murison
I've found that good dialogue tells you not only what people are saying or how they're communicating but it tells you a great deal - by dialect and tone, content and circumstance - about the quality of the character. ~ E. O. Wilson
Dialect quotes by E. O. Wilson
Mr. Idris Elba is amazing! He happens to be British, but what's funny about him is that when he's speaking in his American dialect, he looks like he's a brother from the 'hood. But as soon as he brings out that English thing, I'm like, 'Woo! You look like you're from London. Oh my God!' It's like everything on him changes. He's so cool! ~ Tasha Smith
Dialect quotes by Tasha Smith
A non-standard dialect is as valid communication system as the standard ~ Kate Burridge
Dialect quotes by Kate Burridge
The main body of Vikings were given lands in the Seine basin in exchange for protecting Paris. They settled into northern France and within a century were speaking a dialect of French and became known as the Normans. ~ Mark Kurlansky
Dialect quotes by Mark Kurlansky
Once when I was young-maybe more than once-when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me "garbage" in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn't damage my self esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn't actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.
As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophie, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectful toward me. When I mentioned I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.
"Oh dear, it's just a misunderstanding. Amy was speaking metaphorically-right, Amy? you didn't actually call Sophie 'garbage.'"
"Um, yes I did. But it's all in the context," I tried to explain. "It's a Chinese immigrant thing. ~ Amy Chua
Dialect quotes by Amy Chua
(Harry Reid) was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama - a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one. ~ Harry Reid
Dialect quotes by Harry Reid
The London dialect as it is spoken in educated circles. ~ Henry Sweet
Dialect quotes by Henry Sweet
I'm from Connecticut, and we don't have any dialects. Well, I don't think we have any dialects, and yeah, it's very complex. That Rhode Island/Massachusetts New England region is arguably the hardest dialect to nail. ~ Seth MacFarlane
Dialect quotes by Seth MacFarlane
Each culture might lend its own dialect, but above all that is the language of music itself, and it doesn't care about politics or boundaries. ~ Geoff Zanelli
Dialect quotes by Geoff Zanelli
My places were emotional, primarily. I wrote of locales in which I had lived, or in which I imagined I could live, but the topography was primal and sexual and terminal. It bore no distinct architecture or design or dialect. It was merely human and in peril, which is to say universal. But on Royal and Coliseum and Vista--streets I cannot relinquish--I found my places and I dreamed a narrative. Can I go there and find it again?"--Tennessee Williams ~ James Grissom
Dialect quotes by James Grissom
I speak a little bit of Italian, yeah. I understand more than I speak. I speak more of a dialect; my mum's from Naples and my dad's from Sicily, so it comes out little a bit of a cocktail of the Italian language. ~ Luke Pasqualino
Dialect quotes by Luke Pasqualino
The tree man eulogized them by screaming, 'And now get the hell out of here with your tree, you lousy bastards.'
Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was really saying, 'Good-bye
God bless you. ~ Betty Smith
Dialect quotes by Betty Smith
Death was sweetened for the martyrs by the promise of 72 virgins waiting in paradise. She had researched the 72 virgins. The number wasn't actually in the Quran but in the Hadith 2687, collected in the Book of Sunan. The Quran, in Sura 56, was vague on the point. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls ... A new analysis translated houris from the Aramaic dialect Syriac as "white raisins", which put everything in a very different light. ~ Leslie Cockburn
Dialect quotes by Leslie Cockburn
You can have your own language. You can have your own dialect; you can have your own way of saying things, but if you don't actually understand the way the language fits together, it's chaos. ~ Nick Earls
Dialect quotes by Nick Earls
In my native valley of the middle Dniester, gentry spoke Polish, peasants - Ukrainian, officials - Russian with the Odessa accent, merchants - Jewish, carpenters and joiners - being Filippians and Old Believers - Russian with the Novogrod accent, the kabanists spoke in their own dialect. Additionally, in the same area there were also villages of Polish-speaking noblemen, and nobles who spoke Ukrainian, Moldovan villages speaking in Romanian; Gypsies speaking in Gypsy, Turks were no longer there, but in Khotyn, on the other side of the Dniester and in Kamieniec, their minarets were still standing...All these shades of nationality and languages were also in a semi-fluid state. Sons of Poles sometimes became Ukrainians, sons of Germans and French - Poles. In Odessa, unusual things happened: the Greeks became Russians, Poles were seen joining Soyuz Russkavo Naroda. Even stranger combinations arose from mixed marriages. 'If a Pole marries a Russian woman,' my father used to say, 'their children are usually Ukrainians or Lithuanians'. ~ Jerzy Stempowski
Dialect quotes by Jerzy Stempowski
I'm good with dialect. Some actors do it immediately; other actors never quite get it. It's something I've always really enjoyed and something I've always been pretty fast with. ~ Scarlett Johansson
Dialect quotes by Scarlett Johansson
The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was the novelist Joseph Conrad's third language, and much of that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.

In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.

All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens not to be standard English, and if it shows itself when you write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.

I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to w ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Dialect quotes by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
In time [the newsboys] developed their own dialect and traditions and codes of conduct, the prevailing one being the code of the wild, under which smaller newsboys were regularly plundered by larger ones, the littlest of them--some as young as five years old--being as weak and vulnerable as the baby fish that gave them their nickname: small fry. ~ Matthew Goodman
Dialect quotes by Matthew Goodman
Suffice it to say I was compelled to create this group in order to find everyone who is, let's say, borrowing liberally from my INESTIMABLE FOLIO OF CANONICAL MASTERPIECES (sorry, I just do that sometimes), and get you all together. It's the least I could do.

I mean, seriously. Those soliloquies in Moby-Dick? Sooo Hamlet and/or Othello, with maybe a little Shylock thrown in. Everyone from Pip in Great Expectations to freakin' Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre mentions my plays, sometimes completely mangling my words in nineteenth-century middle-American dialect for humorous effect (thank you, Sir Clemens). Many people (cough Virginia Woolf cough) just quote me over and over again without attribution. I hear James Joyce even devoted a chapter of his giant novel to something called the "Hamlet theory," though do you have some sort of newfangled English? It looks like gobbledygook to me. The only people who don't seek me out are like Chaucer and Dante and those ancient Greeks. For whatever reason.

And then there are the titles. The Sound and the Fury? Mine. Infinite Jest? Mine. Proust, Nabokov, Steinbeck, and Agatha Christie all have titles that are me-inspired. Brave New World? Not just the title, but half the plot has to do with my work. Even Edgar Allan Poe named a character after my Tempest's Prospero (though, not surprisingly, things didn't turn out well for him!). I'm like the star to every wandering bark, the arrow of every compass, the buzzard to every haw ~ Sarah Schmelling
Dialect quotes by Sarah Schmelling
They jabbered amongst themselves in a bizarre jibberish that sounded like Spanish gone wrong: maybe gringo Spanglish, some kind of Espanahuatl that I hadn't decoded yet, or a dialect of Spanmayan, Zapotecnish, Spanotomi, Mixtecnish, or some other new native language; or Japanish, Spanorean or…I'm getting carried away. You need a talent for picking up new words and grammars these days-it's become an obsession with me, someday I'll probably write a book about it, but in what language? ~ Ernest Hogan
Dialect quotes by Ernest Hogan
He's more a shape in a drape than a hep cat ~ Sara Sheridan
Dialect quotes by Sara Sheridan
Tongues and odors mixed on the air: Iskari and motor oil, sweat and leather, Camlaander and Archipelagese and some Shining Empire dialect like silk-muffled cymbals. ~ Max Gladstone
Dialect quotes by Max Gladstone
Coincidentally the couple who had endowed it had lived in her parents' building. They had had an eight-year-old with a pretty singing voice who drowned at a Maine summer camp. "You can't imagine what happened," said Sarah, but of course Rebecca could imagine. Being a boy soprano had a shorter shelf life than being a supermodel. She could almost see it as Sarah went on and on, the boy with the pale blue eyes, insensible to the hormones coursing through his body as he stood on the stage at Alice Tully Hall. Apparently his choir director had chosen "Old Man River," sung not in the bass range made famous by Paul Robeson, or in the dialect in which it had been written, but in a high register with crisp consonants. (To be fair to the choir director, he had never ~ Anna Quindlen
Dialect quotes by Anna Quindlen
The sky blue blue, Mr. Wiggins. ~ Ernest J. Gaines
Dialect quotes by Ernest J. Gaines
I don't have a Jersey dialect. So when I approached the singing, I approached it the same way as an actor I approach a dialect, just as a singer. ~ John Lloyd Young
Dialect quotes by John Lloyd Young
Shakespearean words, foreign words, slang and dialect and made-up phrases from kids on the street corner: English has room for them all. And writers - not just literary writers, but popular writers as well - breathe air into English and keep it lively by making it their own, not by adhering to some style manual that gets handed out to college Freshmen in a composition class. ~ Donna Tartt
Dialect quotes by Donna Tartt
Children, and sometimes those of larger growth, will not read dialect. ~ Joseph Jacobs
Dialect quotes by Joseph Jacobs
Tommy looked blank. "What's a flashlight?"
"You don't have flashlights?" Jessup said. "Jeeze! A cylinder, like, with batteries inside it, and a light bulb behind glass at one end
"
Tommy's blue eyes glinted dangerously. "We have a thing in Scotland that's a cylinder too. Very thin, made of wood, with graphite in the center. We call it a pencil."
Jessup hooted. "You think we don't have pencils?"
"You think we don't have flashlights?" Tommy snapped. "That's just American dialect. In the English language they're called torches."
Emily said mildly, "Actually we're Canadians. ~ Susan Cooper
Dialect quotes by Susan Cooper
I have a dialect myself; it's more pronounced, because I have studied theatre and been in England. It's half-British, half-Indian. ~ Kunal Nayyar
Dialect quotes by Kunal Nayyar
Poetry must find ways of breaking distance ... all languages are dialects that are made to break new grounds. ~ Giannina Braschi
Dialect quotes by Giannina Braschi
We are entrusted, you must know, with the revision of the English Dictionary. On the evidence of the Liverpool find of Christmas cards, in which occurred such couplets as:

Just to hope the day keeps fine
For you and your this Christmas time,

and:

I hope this stocking's in your line
When stars shine bright at Christmas-time

I hold that "Christmas-time" was often pronounced "Christmas-tine", and that this is a dialect variant of the older "Christmas-tide". Quant denies this, with a warmth that is unusual in him.'
'Quant is right. ~ Robert Graves
Dialect quotes by Robert Graves
Quadruple crap. Why couldn't I control myself? Why did he have this effect on me? "Are you compelling me right now?"
To my surprise, his smile held an edge of sadness. "That would give you a much needed excuse, but I am afraid I am not."
Curse my body for reacting to his. As long as I kept him out of my heart, I would be okay.
"I think it a bit too late for that, my dear."
"You're using old man speak again." I made a face. "It's creepy."
He chuckled. "I'll try to remember that, but I haven't been around humans much in the past hundred years. It's hard to keep up with the changes in common dialect."
"Let's keep on topic, Jett. You were going to teach me how to control my mind. ~ Christie Rich
Dialect quotes by Christie Rich
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all. ~ Walt Whitman
Dialect quotes by Walt Whitman
Q'eeng had just attempted in the third dialect the traditional rightward schism greeting of "I offer you the bread of life," but his phrasing and accent had transmuted the statement into "Let us violate cakes together. ~ John Scalzi
Dialect quotes by John Scalzi
What is jazz? It, It's almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It's a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America. ~ Branford Marsalis
Dialect quotes by Branford Marsalis
It's a common mistake for vacationing Americans to assume that everyone around them is French and therefore speaks no English whatsoever. [ ... ] An experienced traveler could have told by looking at my shoes that I wasn't French. And even if I were French, it's not as if English is some mysterious tribal dialect spoken only by anthropologists and a small population of cannibals. ~ David Sedaris
Dialect quotes by David Sedaris
Partisans present some of the most refreshing music I've heard in a long while, uncompromising, very well written and very well played. It demands serious attention. I hear in these players a sense of common purpose and resolve, and a strong command of a dialect uniquely suited to this music. It's heartening to hear music that looks to find its own particular place. ~ Steve Swallow
Dialect quotes by Steve Swallow
When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text. ~ Ralph Fletcher
Dialect quotes by Ralph Fletcher
This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America. ~ William Labov
Dialect quotes by William Labov
I started by studying Kiswahili to learn the dialect. Then, I studied tapes, documentaries, footage, and audio cassettes of Idi Amin's speeches. And I met with his brothers, his sisters, his ministers, his generals' all kinds of people, in order to try to understand him. ~ Forest Whitaker
Dialect quotes by Forest Whitaker
A little later, as we talked of the Maniot dirges by which I was obsessed, I was surprised to hear this bloodshot-eyed and barefoot old man say: "Yes, it's the old iambic tetrameter acalectic." It was the equivalent of a Cornish fisherman pointing out the difference, in practicality incomprehensible dialect, between the Petrachian and the Spenserian sonnet. It was quite correct. Where on earth had he learnt it? His last bit of information was that, in the old days (that wonderful cupboard!) the Arabs used to come to this coast to dive for the murex. ~ Patrick Leigh Fermor
Dialect quotes by Patrick Leigh Fermor
There is the buried language and there is the individual vocabulary, and the process of poetry is one of excavation and of self-discovery. Tonally the individual voice is a dialect; it shapes its own accent, its own vocabulary and melody in defiance of an imperial concept of language, the language of Ozymandias, libraries and dictionaries, law courts and critics, and churches, universities, political dogma, the diction of institutions. Poetry is an island that breaks away from the main. ~ Derek Walcott
Dialect quotes by Derek Walcott
ONE GROUP OF Vikings remained in Iceland, becoming the Icelanders. A second group remained in the Faroe Islands. The main body of Vikings were given lands in the Seine basin in exchange for protecting Paris. They settled into northern France and within a century were speaking a dialect of French and became known as the Normans. Soon the Vikings had vanished. ~ Mark Kurlansky
Dialect quotes by Mark Kurlansky
Well, American dialects have been studied for a hundred years or so. ~ William Labov
Dialect quotes by William Labov
The youngest warrior scowled at him and rattled off something in a dialect Kade was unfamiliar with.

What backwater hellhole did these two mongrels climb out of?

A knot of tension began building in his shoulders, the desire to react growing almost unbearable.

He looked once more around the room, and when he was sure there would be no one around to run and get the chief's guards, Kade eased back in his chair a little, a placating smile on his face as he prepared to kill them as swiftly as possible. ~ Sarah Addison-Fox
Dialect quotes by Sarah Addison-Fox
My parents genuinely loved Vienna, and in later years I learned from them why the city exerted a powerful hold on them and other Jews. My parents loved the dialect of Vienna, its cultural sophistication, and artistic values. ~ Eric Kandel
Dialect quotes by Eric Kandel
I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born. ~ Emily Carr
Dialect quotes by Emily Carr
To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay
Dialect quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay
From Dickens's cockneys to Salinger's phonies, from Kerouac's beatniks to Cheech and Chong's freaks, and on to hip hop's homies, dialect has always been used as a way for generations to distinguish themselves. ~ Christopher Moore
Dialect quotes by Christopher Moore
[On The Philippines:] ... eighty dialects and languages are spoken; we are a fragmented nation of loyal believers, divided by blood feuds and controlled by the Church. ~ Jessica Hagedorn
Dialect quotes by Jessica Hagedorn
I was excited to play Lil' Kim and I wanted to do the role justice. I worked really hard on that role, whether it was performing the rhymes, studying the dialect, her swagger and her stage performances. I wanted people to see my range and stretch my wings as an actress. ~ Naturi Naughton
Dialect quotes by Naturi Naughton
A mama's boy, loner, intellectual, voracious reader and gourmand, Dimitri was a man of esoteric skills and appetites: a gambler, philosopher, gardener, fly-fisherman, fluent in Russian and German as well as having an amazing command of English. He loved antiquated phrases, dry sarcasm, military jargon, regional dialect, and the New York Times crossword puzzle - to which he was hopelessly addicted. ~ Anthony Bourdain
Dialect quotes by Anthony Bourdain
We need spies that look like their targets, CIA officers who speak the dialects terrorists use, and FBI agents who can speak to Muslim women who might be intimidated by men. ~ Jane Harman
Dialect quotes by Jane Harman
She had believed that she'd been born with a soul whose thoughts were in no particular dialect[...] ~ Nell Freundenberger
Dialect quotes by Nell Freundenberger
I guess I'd always mocked the American accent. I didn't consider it a respectable dialect, but I was told that it was. ~ Callan McAuliffe
Dialect quotes by Callan McAuliffe
I started out in New York, and New York has a way of countering a Southern accent, naturally; when I moved to Los Angeles for a job, and I just stayed, the dialect out here doesn't really counter, and my Southern started coming back. ~ Kim Dickens
Dialect quotes by Kim Dickens
When you use a dialect, you worry that the people you're imitating will think you're making fun of them. ~ Jack Nicholson
Dialect quotes by Jack Nicholson
Human beings have evolved to be extremely good at identifying other individual humans. The race's survival depends on it. A guard lets the wrong person through the gate, and a whole settlement is wiped out. There are a million ways to tell two human beings apart. Not just appearance, either. Gait, odor, pheromones, speech patterns, dialect, nervous habits... even the way people breathe. Even parents of identical twins have little difficulty telling them apart, despite the fact that they are genetically identical and were raised in exactly the same environment, because of tiny differences in appearance and behavior that accrue as the result of differing experiences. The ability of one human to recognize another by appearance is especially acute when it comes to heterosexual males observing nubile females. There is nothing on Earth men pay more attention to than the appearance of sexually attractive young women. ~ Robert Kroese
Dialect quotes by Robert Kroese
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid marveled at the electability of Barack Obama because, unlike previous black candidates, Mr. Obama was 'light-skinned' and lacked a 'Negro dialect.' ~ Monica Crowley
Dialect quotes by Monica Crowley
My husband and I speak an ancient language called grammatical English, and the kids speak a strange dialect which is difficult to decode because it is based on only four phrases: 'Huh,' 'I dunno,' 'It's not my turn,' and 'I do everything around here! ~ Teresa Bloomingdale
Dialect quotes by Teresa Bloomingdale
Until all titles are taken away
Events are finally obscure forever
You wake and wonder
Whose case history you composed
As your confessions are filed
In the dialect
Of bureaux and electrons ~ Thomas Merton
Dialect quotes by Thomas Merton
Our people, our history, our struggle is more than a war, more than a fall, more than a favorite dish, more than one monolithic political opinion, more than one dialect, one gender, one nation, one flag. Respect and love to the diaspora - as imperfect as I am, I am one of you and I am yours. ~ Bao Phi
Dialect quotes by Bao Phi
I believe that virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen, ... even if Gargery and Boffin did not speak like gentlemen, they were gentlemen. ~ Charles Dickens
Dialect quotes by Charles Dickens
Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" ... he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. ~ Elmore Leonard
Dialect quotes by Elmore Leonard
The troll rumbled away in the direction of the coal store and his place in front of Billy was taken by a smartly dressed young lady with an air of authority. 'Sir, I think the railway is going to need a translator. I know every language and dialect on the Disc.' Her voice was firm but there was a glint of excitement in her eyes as she looked at Iron Girder and the other engines in the compound and Billy knew she was hooked. He also knew that 'translator' was not on his list of vacancies and sent her off to Sir Harry's office, while he returned to his search for shunters, tappers and other workers. And so the line moved on again. It seemed everybody wanted to be part of the railway. ~ Terry Pratchett
Dialect quotes by Terry Pratchett
I look at the natural geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. ~ Charles Darwin
Dialect quotes by Charles Darwin
The strange thing about Yngve's nocturnal life was that on occasion he could be heard speaking eastern Norwegian dialect in his sleep. He moved from Oslo when he was four and had not spoken dialect for close to thirty years. Yet it could pass his lips when he was asleep. There was something spooky about it. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard
Dialect quotes by Karl Ove Knausgaard
I am a ghost to this man, I'm thinking. I am something unreal, something not quite tangible, yet still an obstacle of sorts and he nods, gets back on the phone, resumes speaking in a dialect totally alien to me. ~ Bret Easton Ellis
Dialect quotes by Bret Easton Ellis
They could be in possession of a majestic beauty, but as soon as their mouth betrayed them of the ignorance they'd chosen to allow into their dialect, the allure quickly turned into a repellant." --David Harmon (from "The Room" Copyright 2016 Brian C. Copper) ~ Brian C. Copper
Dialect quotes by Brian C. Copper
Regret and remorse" is a dialectic issue about what has been done, about what should have been done and about what should not have been done. ( "Island of regret. Island of remorse" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie
Dialect quotes by Erik Pevernagie
The Language of the Dream/Night is contrary to that of Waking/Day. It is a language of Images and Sensations, the various dialects of which are far less different from each other, than the various Day-Languages of Nations. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dialect quotes by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Mm, you're nice to croodle wi', he murmured, doing what I assumed was croodling. ~ Diana Gabaldon
Dialect quotes by Diana Gabaldon
I need to hear your voice. I heard others' voices and didn't understand anything. I feel that people move their lips, but I cannot understand their language. I cannot discern their dialect. Let me hear your voice, at least call my name. Let me feel that I am alive. Unlock my ears, so I can hear. ~ Amany Al-Hallaq
Dialect quotes by Amany Al-Hallaq
For her beauty, as we are told, was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her; but converse with her had an irresistible charm, and her presence, combined with the persuasiveness of her discourse and the character which was somehow diffused about her behaviour towards others, had something stimulating about it. 3 There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. 4 Nay, it is said that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language, and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect. ~ Plutarch
Dialect quotes by Plutarch
Is it possible to make a living by simply watching light? Monet did. Vermeer did. I believe Vincent did too. They painted light in order to witness the dance between revelation and concealment, exposure and darkness. Perhaps this is what I desire most, to sit and watch the shifting shadows cross the cliff face of sandstone or simply to walk parallel with a path of liquid light called the Colorado River. In the canyon country of southern Utah, these acts of attention are not merely the pastimes of artists, but daily work, work that matters to the whole community.
This living would include becoming a caretaker of silence, a connoisseur of stillness, a listener of wind where each dialect is not only heard but understood. ~ Terry Tempest Williams
Dialect quotes by Terry Tempest Williams
I was too kind of brave and proud to want a dialect coach because I thought that showed weakness in my armor. But then you just learn it's a more efficient way of doing it. A dialect coach is really important because it takes a certain technical responsibility off your shoulders. ~ Russell Crowe
Dialect quotes by Russell Crowe
I approach the singing kind of like with dialect thoughts in my mind. I have to sound like this on certain things to give that Frankie Valli flavor. ~ John Lloyd Young
Dialect quotes by John Lloyd Young
I think Shakespeare is like a dialect. If I heard a broad Scots accent, I'd probably struggle at first but then I'd start to look for words I recognise and I'd get the gist. I think Shakespeare is like that. ~ Ralph Fiennes
Dialect quotes by Ralph Fiennes
The eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage that the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the world over. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dialect quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Igbo people of Southern Nigeria are more than ten million strong and must be accounted one of the major peoples of Africa. Conventional practice would call them a tribe, but I no longer follow that convention. I call them a nation.

"Here we go again!," you might be thinking.
Well, let me explain. My Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines tribe as follows: "group of (esp. primitive) families or communities linked by social, religious or blood ties and usually having a common culture and dialect and a recognized leader." If we apply the different criteria of this definition to Igbo people we will come up with the following results:

a. Igbo people are not primitive; if we were I would not be offering this distinguished lecture, or would I?;
b. Igbo people are not linked by blood ties; although they may share many cultural traits;
c. Igbo people do not speak one dialect; they speak one language which has scores of major and minor dialects;
d. and as for having one recognized leader, Igbo people would regard the absence of such a recognized leader as the very defining principle of their social and political identity. ~ Chinua Achebe
Dialect quotes by Chinua Achebe
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