David Crystal Quotes

I'm against the idea of force-feeding all of Canada on two languages.

When California passes a law saying that English is the official language, it can only mean one thing: That English is no longer the official language.

It's problematic being an Arab who writes in Hebrew.

Under the Assads, Kurds were forbidden from learning their own language at school, or even from speaking it in the military. The result is a generation of Syrian Kurds, many now in late middle age, who can't write their own language.

I don't think the elite class is only speaking the good English.

Speaking Spanish isn't a benefit in Hollywood.

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

I think with all my books, language has been their subject as much as anything else. Language can elide or displace or sideline whole groups of people. You can't necessarily change the way language is used, but if it becomes something you're conscious of... that gives you a certain power over it.

So what's really behind the 'English Only' Movement? Fear. Fear of being taken over and one day they will have to learn something different. Heaven forbid they would have to learn something new.

All of us in Quebec - and I mean all of us - have allowed language to become a preoccupation that works to the disadvantage of all of us - and I mean all of us.

Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens - it is an imposition on the state.

When I was young we weren't even allowed to speak our own languages in school. They called it 'vernacular,' as if only English was the real tongue.

Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.

You know, even growing up going to school, I had teachers that were against bilingual teaching. I never understood that. My parents always had me speak Spanish first knowing I was going to speak English in school.

In school in Lebanon, we were not allowed to speak Arabic during breaks - it had to be French or English.

Most educated Indians are bilingual. Amongst the urban elite though, there is a disdain for regional languages. That's unfortunate.

After all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question.

I am not anti-English, and I never was.

The psychology of a language which, in one way or another, is imposed upon one because of factors beyond one's control, is very different from the psychology of a language which one accepts of one's free will.

When I was a girl, there wasn't anything in Spanish in the movies until you saw it on DVD.

It's interesting that, given our culture has so many words that refer to women in a truly derogatory fashion, it's 'lady' - a term that has conferred social respect on our gender for over a thousand years - that has women up in arms.

It wasn't so long ago that it was not popular to speak Gaelic in Ireland because the areas that Gaelic is spoken in were much poorer areas.

I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad that I cannot write in my native Ilokano. History demanded this; if it isn't English I am using now, I would most probably be writing in Spanish like Rizal, or even German or Japanese.

One of the biggest problems is - you know, I've got some Hispanic friends - is that a lot of those folks that don't know English, is primarily because they don't even know Spanish. They don't even know their own language.

Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.