Guy Deutscher quotes

“Language is mankind’s greatest invention – except, of course, that it was never invented.”
-- Guy Deutscher

#Language Quotes #Invention Quotes #Mankind Quotes

“And there are also languages that divide nouns into much more specific genders. The African language Supyire from Mali has five genders: humans, big things, small things, collectives, and liquids. Bantu languages such as Swahili have up to ten genders, and the Australian language Ngan’gityemerri is said to have fifteen different genders, which include, among others, masculine human, feminine human, canines, non-canine animals, vegetables, drinks, and two different genders for spears (depending on size and material).”
-- Guy Deutscher

#Animal Quotes #Vegetables Quotes #Two Quotes

“As strange as it may sound, our experience of a Chagall painting actually depends to some extent on whether our language has a word for blue.”
-- Guy Deutscher

#Blue Quotes #Sound Quotes #May Quotes

“Language is mankind’s greatest invention – except, of course, that it was never invented.”
-- Guy Deutscher

Source : Guy Deutscher (2006). “The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention”, p.1, Macmillan

#Language Quotes #Invention Quotes #Mankind Quotes

“Never impose your language on people you wish to reach.”

Source : Abbie Hoffman (1968). “Revolution for the hell of it”

“It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we'd read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand.”

“In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.”

“Invention is arrived at by intelligent stumbling.”

Source : "Spotlight: Amar Bose, the guru of sound design" by Roxana Popescu, www.nytimes.com. May 11, 2007.

“Home is an invention on which no one has yet improved.”

“A nation has a fixed quantity of invention, and it will make itself felt.”

“But even more: all at once the Jew also becomes liberal and begins to rave about the necessary progress of mankind.”

“Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.”

“We're all mankind and humankind - so just be one and show kindness.”

“Power is what spoils people. Yes, it seems to me that the seeking after power is the great danger and the great corruptor of mankind.”

Source : "The Nuremberg Interviews". Book by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately, p. 245 (To Leon Goldensohn, June 16, 1946), 2004.