Oxford English Dictionary Quotes

English is not my first language.

For the benefit of those who are not bilingual, I will now continue in English.

The illiteracy test will bear most heavily upon the Italians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, and Asiatics, and very lightly, or not at all, upon English-speaking emigrants and Germans, Scandinavians, and French. In other words, the races most affected by the illiteracy test are those…with which the English-speaking people have never hitherto assimilated, and who are the most alien to the great body of the people of the United States.

Globalization has brought a proliferation of such environments, so that even monolinguals must increasingly learn to live and act multilingually.

English is not my language.

I think it's really hard for me... to sing in English, because it's not my mother tongue.

I'm not a native English speaker but do post tweets in English.

Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire, and the dragoons of Marat, or our daughters the concubines of the Illuminati?

England has become the habitation of outsiders and the dominion of foreigners. Today, no Englishman is earl, bishop, or abbot, and newcomers gnaw away at the riches and very innards of England; nor is there any hope for an end of this misery.

If a child cannot speak English the first day at school, that child is not ready to learn.

I didn't move to Miami to live in a Spanish-speaking province.

English-speaking Canada, far from stifling Quebec, has acted...as a committed partner, a buffer, shielding its culture from the rest of an English-speaking continent that Quebecers perceive as a threatening force.

If you spend your time trying to learn English, you fall behind in your course content… I know because when I came here I could not speak English. So that was the idea of Congress when we passed bi-lingual education. But that was to only go on for a short time—one and one half years. But many of the bi-lingual education programs of today go on for year after year and they are destructive because the primary objective is to learn English.

Miami is America’s most diverse city… We have 140 languages we speak..

The English are certainly very jealous of foreigners, and so … are the rest of mankind.

Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks.

[Referring to immigrants:] They're all over the place, and they don't speak English. Do we want more of this?

Discrimination still exists. Some people feel that their own beliefs are being threatened. Some are unhappy about unfamiliar cultures. They all need to be reassured that there is so much to be gained by reaching out to others; that diversity is indeed a strength and not a threat.

There was no question of the racial superiority of northwestern Europeans or of the racial inferiority of southeastern Europeans. It was simply a question as to which of these two groups of aliens is, as a whole, best fitted by tradition, political background, customs, education, and habits of thought to adjust itself to American institutions and to American social and economic conditions--to become, in short, an adaptable, homogeneous and helpful element in American national life.

People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture...

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

I was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States with my family when I was 4. I spent most of my childhood in Chicago. My elementary school had no program in English as a second language, so I was placed in a class for students with speech impediments.

When I was 10 years old, we moved to Spain with my mother. I learned Spanish before I learned English. But the English language stayed with me.

I speak three other languages - Serbian, French, and Italian - but typically read in English.

Every Hispanic player goes through that. It's a lot of hard work, to be able to communicate with your teammates. English is fundamental to be able to express yourself fully in a game.