Niklaus Wirth Quotes

Language makes infinite use of finite media.

The ways in which language changes never ceases to interest me.

Well, language seems to be something that obsesses me. I'm always writing about it.

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.

Languages are true analytical methods.

If you decide to design your own language, there are thousands of sort of amateur language designer pitfalls.

Within speech, words are subject to a kind of relation that is independent of the first and based on their linkage: these are syntagmatic relations, of which I have spoken.

The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence.

As Bromberger observed, rules are understood to be elements of the computational systems that determine the sound and meaning of the infinite array of expressions of a language; the information so derived is accessed by other systems in language use.

Language is something that I take great interest in.

Words," he said, "is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions.

It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?

I'm not trying to stump anybody... it's the beauty of the language that I'm interested in.

Semantics, or the study of meaning, remained undeveloped, while phonetics made rapid progress and even came to occupy the central place in the scientific study of language.

I have always loved the fluidity of language - delighting in dialects, dictionaries, slang and neologisms.

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption.

Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.

I became aware that all sounds can make meaningful language.

Loving your language means a command of its vocabulary beyond the level of the everyday.

The marvelous thing is that even in studying linguistics, we find that the universe as a whole is patterned, ordered, and to some degree intelligible to us.