So is language change progress or degeneration? It is neither, of course. To assert that language change is for the better or worse requires some measure of what "good" or "bad" language is, and the issue of language change needn't come into question here. But no coherent criterion has ever been given: upon examination, the pronouncements of the self-appointed pundits are always a mix of cultural biases, half-understandings of languages, and an obvious compulsion for telling people what to do. Charles Yang
Some Similar Quotes
  1. The menu is not the meal. - Alan W. Watts
  2. Words are the clothes thoughts wear. - Samuel Beckett
  3. When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world. - George Steiner
  4. Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
  5. Words are made for a certain exactness of thought, as tears are for a certain degree of pain. What is least distinct cannot be named; what is clearest is unutterable. - Unknown
More Quotes By Charles Yang
  1. So is language change progress or degeneration? It is neither, of course. To assert that language change is for the better or worse requires some measure of what "good" or "bad" language is, and the issue of language change needn't come into question here. But...
  2. The true structure of the Welsh grammar will be revealed only when we look at sentences slightly more complicated than its basic VSO pattern. Welsh is no different from the rest of the world: it does involve an extra step, but even that isn't all...
  3. Universal grammar is about what language is: it is to be distinguished from prescriptive grammars, often distilled in newspaper columns, which tell us what language should be. We are all entitled to our own opinions of what is appropriate, be it in the arrangement of...
  4. Now we have come full circle to the subtitle of this book: children learn by unlearning other languages. Viewed in the Darwinian light, all humanly possible grammars compete to match the language spoken in the child's environment. And fitness, because we have competition, can be...
  5. Is language actually getting better, shorter, and easier? Nowadays we often hear exactly the opposite. Teenager slang is awful, students no longer learn Latin, our children – not to mention our president – cannot put together a grammatical sentence. The whimsical poet Ogden Nash was...
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