Threatened Languages Quotes

Paradoxically, our imperial global Anglo-American language is dull with the glitter of its own decay. In response, the new meta- physical poet might consider the following cleansing strategies: keep faith with the canonical writers of the past, study Homeric Greek, excavate etymologies, embrace threatened languages, practice the fine art of translation, listen regularly to the musical flow of the breath and the beat of the heart, switch off the television, become a votary of silence.
Here lies the beginning of freedom. ~ Peter Abbs

What the survival of threatened languages means, perhaps, is the endurance of dozens, hundreds, thousands of subtly different notions of truth. ~ Mark Abley

My Dearest Theresa,

I have read this book in your garden, my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book that was yours, he could only think of love.
In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours, Amor mio, is comprised my existence here and thereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter – to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent, I wish you had stayed there, with all my heart, or at least, that I had never met you in your married state.
But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me, at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it. ~ Lord Byron

By the time we returned to the hotel room, we were laughing again. Marlboro Man was teasing me about how many clothes I'd brought on the honeymoon, and I'd punched him in the arm; he, in turn, had trapped me in the corner of the elevator and tickled me, and I'd threatened to wet my pants if he didn't stop. And I wasn't kidding; I'd had a glass of wine at dinner, as well as two Diet Cokes. Tickling me in an elevator wouldn't be a good idea for very long. ~ Ree Drummond

I want you to go to the Ancient Languages Department at Trinity College tomorrow morning, Ms.Lane. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Later, they also found a camp of outlaws who, when offered the chance to join the rebel ranks, unsheathed their daggers and threatened to cut the three into tiny, bloody pieces and eat them for dinner.
They too that as a firm no. ~ Morgan Rhodes

Our security must be threatened in order for us to appreciate it. ~ Mary Astor

When the origin of remote peoples goes beyond history, our languages show themselves their oldest monuments ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Prudery is often immodestly modest; its habit is to multiply sentinels in proportion as the fortress is less threatened. ~ George D. Prentice

Some children are threatened with loss of privileges such as money, cell phones, cars or even eviction from home if they do not 'toe-the-line' and 'act straight'. I don't think parents who do such things consider for a moment the kind of emotional damage they are doing to their children - or thinking beyond their own feelings about the situation - which will not change or go away simply because of their denial. ~ Christina Engela

We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny. ~ Salman Rushdie

English loves to stay out all night dancing with other languages, all decked out in sparkling prepositions and irregular verbs. It is unruly and will not obey - just when you think you have it in hand, it lets down its hair along with a hundred nonsensical exceptions. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I wanted to learn a few foreign languages, and therefore I had to go abroad. ~ Ella Maillart

How that works is our first season was the year we had a threatened writers' strike, so what we did was that instead of doing 22 episodes, we did 30. We put 10 in the bank. ~ Christopher Meloni

[Google is] an omnivorous collector of information, a hyperencyclopedic vault of human knowledge, an unerring auctioneer, an eerily skilful student of languages, behaviour, and desires. ~ Steven Levy

1,000 out of the world's 6,000 languages, crammed into an area only slightly larger than that of Texas, ~ Jared Diamond

A quick check on the platoon showed everyone more or less enjoying the flight.
"Whatever it is you're eating, Ressk, swallow it before we land," [said Staff Sergeant Kerr].
"No problem, Staff."
"More like whoever he's eating," Binti muttered beside him.
"You ought to count your fingers," he suggested. "You're too serley stupid to notice one missing."
"Maybe you ought to gren sa talamec to."
"That's enough, people."
When the Confederation first started integrating the di'Taykan and the Krai into what was predominantly a human military system, xenopsychologists among the elder races expected a number of problems. For the most part, those expectations fell short. After having dealt with the Mictok and the H'san, none of the younger races - all bipedal mammals - had any difficulty with each other's appearance. Cultural differences were absorbed into the prevailing military culture and the remaining problems were dealt with in the age-old military tradition of learning to say "up yours" in the other races' languages. The "us against them" mentality of war made for strange bedfellows. ~ Tanya Huff

No politician is threatened by the child protective constituency, because it does not exist. ~ Andrew Vachss

I love languages (I speak French and Spanish and have been studying Russian) and accents; so one definite dream role would be being able to combine those elements into a character. ~ Sundra Oakley

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

We have sworn, and not lightly. This oath we will keep. We are threatened with many evils, and treason not least; but one thing is not said: that we shall suffer from cowardice, from cravens or the fear of cravens. Therefore I say that we will go on, and this doom I add: the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

I can speak the languages of lots of groups and learn others with some ease, but no matter how fluent I am, when I'm not speaking Josie, I am merely acting. We all are when we interact outside of our natural cultures. It is inevitable, because it is impossible to be fully yourself in a foreign language. ~ Erin McCahan

If you look at history, and if you look at all these different things that have threatened the movie industry - from Betamax tape to DVDs to the Internet - in the end, it has always turned out right, because ultimately people want to see that stuff. ~ Kim Dotcom

My adversaries were those with a traditional mind-set, the usual opponents of any idea "not invented here," those fearful that what I was trying to do threatened their existing programs and procurements. ~ Robert M. Gates

He speaks six languages," weaselled her adopted father.
"And ignores instructions in all of them! ~ Gail Carriger

After I published a paper showing that suicidal poets used pronouns differently from non-suicidal poets, a slightly inebriated poet threatened me with a butter knife at a party in my own home. ~ James W. Pennebaker

I don't deserve your love, Eden. You have my heart, but yours should remain in your chest. Save it for a better man. Save it for someone who's worth it." His eyes shimmered as tears threatened to spill over. "You need to leave me."
"No," I told him, grabbing his face. "I need to love you. ~ Karina Halle

Sometimes, when outrage begat outrage with enough frequency, it threatened the fabric of the universe, and the universe pushed back. ~ Dennis Lehane

I'm honestly not jealous of my wife at all - when she succeeds I'm psyched. It never occurred to me to feel threatened by her success. But the one thing I am jealous of is the number of awesome, interesting, artistic, productive, and cool people she gets to hang out with all day. ~ Christopher Noxon

We only speak two languages here: English and profanity. ~ Kevin Constantine

Once you know the Romance languages, singing in those languages is so sexy and sensual. I do have a global audience, so why not? ~ Gloria Estefan

It is rather ironical that in the sixteenth century some people resisted advances in science because they seemed to threaten belief in God; whereas in the twentieth century scientific ideas of a beginning have been resisted because they threatened to increase the plausibility of belief in God. ~ John C. Lennox

Americans have always had an ambivalent attitude toward intelligence. When they feel threatened, they want a lot of it, and when they don't, they regard the whole thing as somewhat immoral. ~ Vernon A. Walters

A special skill, like speaking several languages, or keeping your mouth shut in one. ~ Evan Esar

Jay: Looks like you misspelled the Treaty of Versailles.
Sara: Yeah, well. My brother's natural ability for languages didn't rub off on me.
Jay: ... I'm not talking about Versailles. I have no idea if you spelled that right. I'm talking about the word 'treaty. ~ Tracy Bilen

Why do we accept this one-size-fits-all situation as a given when we know perfectly well that adults don't organize themselves this way? We often marvel at how introverted, geeky kids "blossom" into secure and happy adults. We liken it to a metamorphosis. However, maybe it's not the children who change but their environments. As adults, they get to select the careers, spouses, and social circles that suit them. They don't have to live in whatever culture they're plunked into. Research from a field known as "person-environment fit" shows that people flourish when, in the words of psychologist Brian Little, they're "engaged in occupations, roles or settings that are concordant with their personalities." The inverse is also true: kids stop learning when they feel emotionally threatened. ~ Susan Cain

I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth. ~ David Levithan

In the history of humanity, there have been many languages, including French, that have served as universal languages: Latin, Chinese, Arabic, and more. Yet none of them ever ruled the world the way English does today. ~ Minae Mizumura

He had also jinxed my telescope so that every time I looked at Mars, Marvin the Martian popped up and threatened to destroy the Earth with an explosive space-modulator. ~ Jim C. Hines

Well, I think that you know, I threatened myself with quitting after every movie. But I think everybody does that, right? ~ Joaquin Phoenix

One of the things that people complain about is loneliness, disconnectedness. If you live in a society where your life is rarely threatened and most of your relationships are more on an economic exchange basis, then this could leave people feeling less connected. ~ Steven Pinker

Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened. ~ Archie Shepp

One of my major shortcomings - I'm vindictive. I don't know why that is. Even in petty things in my life I tend to strike back. It's a lot more pleasurable a sensation than feeling threatened. ~ Andy Rooney